On April 8, a large chunk of the USA was in the path of totality for a solar eclipse. You know, that rare time when the moon actually blocks out the sun for a few minutes.
I took the photo above at the darkest point for where we live (obviously not in the path of totality). It was about as dark as it gets when we’re expecting rain. But in other places, the sun disappears completely. Automated street lights come on, birds go to bed, and the world gets very quiet.
Of course, ancient civilizations thought that an eclipse was somehow a punishment from their gods. Come to think of it, there are some modern-day oddities who’ve been saying the same thing. . .
I was privileged to experience an eclipse years ago. I was at summer camp in Maine, and the eclipse was total in Bar Harbor. Our camp was located about an hour away, but one of the campers lived in Bar Harbor and his family invited all of us to their house for the eclipse.
We prepared ahead of time by making eclipse-safe glass to look through, but nothing really prepared us for the weirdness of the event. It almost felt as if the whole natural world was holding its breath until the sun reappeared. When that happened, the birds came back out, singing their morning songs, and everything breathed again.
Fun times.
What I’m Reading
A Trace of Hares by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett
This is the fifth in the Nell Ward mysteries.
Dr. Nell Ward is an environmentalist, but she’s off work right now, attending a wedding in Ireland.
Then a body is discovered in a nearby peat bog. And it’s not an old, well preserved body, as bodies found in peat bogs usually are, because, science. No, it’s a more recent, well preserved body.
In fact, it’s the body of a woman who disappeared a few years before, and was thought to have run away from her unhappy marriage to the present-day groom’s brother.
Nell gets involved, of course, and figures out who the killer was and the convoluted relationships that led to the murder.
Tangled Treasure Trail by Benedict Brown
This is also the fifth book in a series, in this case the Lord Edgington Investigates. I’ve mentioned before that the narrator of these books appeals to me because it’s not Lord Edgington, but his 17-year-old grandson, Christopher.
In this book, Christopher and Lord Edgington get involved in the madcap escapades of a group of Bright Young People who traipse across London at night on zany treasure hunts and games like hare and hounds, where participants are designated as either ‘hare,’ or ‘hound.’ The hounds chase the hares on a search for clues, and the hare wins if he/she arrives at the final point before being caught by their paired hound.
The adventure starts when Lord Edgington realizes, from a newspaper account of a sudden death, that it was actually murder. Shortly after Lord E and Christopher join the group, a second murder takes place.
This treasure trail gets very tangled, indeed, before they unravel it.
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Notable Quotes
Eleanor and bureaucracy went together as comfortably as a munitions store and a lit match, so it wasn’t long before fiery words were flying round the reception area.
- A Very English Murder by Verity Bright
This reminds me of the feminist mantra of the 70s, “a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” It made me smile.
Geoffrey’s T-shirt now looked as though he had added coffee to the spilt beans on it. Pretty soon, he would have a full English breakfast on there.
- Murder at the Matterhorn by TA Williams
This is an example of a wonderfully compact description that lets you know exactly what the shirt looked like. Here’s another one.
In fact, his ego was so intact, his self-esteem so genuine, that it was as if it had been baked in his mother’s kiln and coated with layers of shiny glaze.
- In Big Trouble by Laura Lippman.
Wise Words
Got your vocabulary straight? Here’s another challenge for you. (Here’s a hint: I wrote about this here.)
The Visitor Centre capitalised on the outlook: an arc, walled with glass on the far side, where Nell imagined a café _______ be…
- A Trace of Hares by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett
An eclipse isn't much of a punishment - in fact, it was pretty interesting (only 95% totality here, which is still surprisingly bright). Two major snowstorms since the official beginning of spring, on the other hand... though I suspect the collective two plus feet of snow might have been a gentle joke to put the cocky weatherfolks in their places, who until recently were bemoaning the relative lack of snow during last winter. It is said that one should beware idle wishes. 😉