The Solar Eclipse

I remember what I did twenty years ago today.

It was the day of the solar eclipse. The news was going overboard about it leading up to the event. I remember they were either giving away glasses to wear as it happened, but I read that there was a way to view the eclipse without having to wear them.

I cannot recall exactly what it was but it MIGHT have involved piercing a hole in one piece of paper and then have another piece below it.

My dad, my neighbours and myself were in our garden giving my makeshift viewing apparatus a go.

Let's just say this - it was probably better to have done it with glasses.

It wasn't the only thing that happened that day. In fact, as we were watching the eclipse, a few miles away - at a nursing home - my aunt had passed away.

I didn't find out until I came home from work earlier that evening.

When I was born, only one of my grandparents was still alive. And I didn't have my grandmother for very long as she passed away when I was very young.

I may not have had a grandparent as I grew up, but I had the next best thing in my aunt. She was like a grandmother to me. She used to visit us every week, come here to stay over Christmas, look after us on the weekends when my mum was working and dad had rugby, go on holiday with us.

She was there throughout my childhood. And - like I said - she was the next best thing I had to a grandparent.

It's twenty years since she left. That's half of my life. Thinking back, the twenty years up to 1999 seem to have passed by slowly when compared to the next twenty. I guess, in a way, it was good to have had the twenty that went slow with her because I have plenty of fond memories of growing up with her there watching along.