Sunday 18 March 2012

Stars and sun and shit...

I think I'm a bit geeky in some respects and I'm ok with that.

When it comes to TV shows, anything with amazing wildlife and sciencey things rock my world, providing they don't use too many words with lots of syllables and complicated diagrams. My feeling is that if Brian Cox was my science teacher, things would have been VERY exciting at school. As a 27 year old I have a somewhat crush on him, so I DREAD to think what I would have been like with a schoolgirl crush!

One of my top places I'd love to go and visit is somewhere that Brian told me about (through a TV show, not face to face sadly) and it's this giant desert solar calendar in Peru - fascinating!

But what really floats my boat is the subject of outer space. Yep, all space cadet jokes aside, space blows my mind and mainly for these reasons:

• Space goes on FOREVER. How does anyone know this?
• The moon controls the tide in our seas… the MOON!
• We are the only planet out there (to our knowledge) who have what we have, living life

There are so many more reasons, but those are my top 3 and I’m already feeling a little overwhelmed and I’m not even going to get on to the topic of alien life (although I do think I saw a UFO once but that’s a story for another day)

On a clear night, one of my favourite things to do is to gaze up at the stars. I just love it. I only know about five constellations but I’d like to know more. My favourite is the Plough, also known as the Big Dipper or the saucepan. It’s the easiest to find in my books, it’s not playing hard to get… ‘Here I Am! I’m the one that looks like a saucepan!’ that's my kind of astrology right there.



Can you see the plough in here? Photo by Mr. Empey

Allow me to share a moment in my life that stopped me in my tracks. Josh and I flew around 9 hours to Kenya, Mombasa and spent our first night of the trip in a cottage. We walked to the beach bar in the dark and I looked up to the clearest sky I’ve ever seen. It was like we might bump our head on the stars they were so clear and low, a true Lion King moment like when Mufasa appears at Simba’s lowest moment. Yep.


Right before the Lion King hallucination...

So I looked up and staring right back at me was not Mufasa, but the Plough. Even though I’d flown nine hours across the world, there it was, right above me just as it would be if I was in my back garden at home.

‘But I’ve flown for ages and it’s still straight above me’ I cried aloud, after a few beers. ‘That’s because the sky, and the world is pretty big’ my rational and more sober husband said.

The world has a way of making you feel pretty bloody insignificant sometimes doesn’t it? But it’s also a reminder that there’s so much to see out there.

It happened again in Honduras, I looked up and despite flying 19 hours around the world, there it was twinkling back at me.

I love space. It’s quite big.

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