My Pitbull boy, Taranis, huffling by my side of the bed just before midnight caused me to get up,wander through the dark house to the kitchen and open the door to let him out.
The back garden was lit in that specific way that lets you know the Moon is high, so I could see the fur-boy casting back and forth along the grass near the washing line.
The air was chill but not as freezing as we'd been promised, so I stood in the door waiting for him to finish.
The back garden was lit in that specific way that lets you know the Moon is high, so I could see the fur-boy casting back and forth along the grass near the washing line.
The air was chill but not as freezing as we'd been promised, so I stood in the door waiting for him to finish.
It was then that I moved in Time and Space.
I am 15 and just about to step out onto the flagstoned patio at my Garlands Ride home in Salisbury, Rhodesia.
The time is somewhere between midnight and dawn.
Two telescopes stand waiting for me - a 3" refractor and a 6" reflector named "Slubbitygullion".
More importantly, the deep space galactic clouds and star clusters are up there, waiting forever.
The Yugoslavian-printed book of constellations crackles open in my hands, I feel the slick cover and well-thumbed pages under my fingers and thumbs as I bend the spine of the little book back at the place I need tonight.
I smell the chilly night air. I see the patio illuminated only by starlight.
I breath into and out of a body 40 years back in time and a few thousand kilometeres away in space.
I was there.
And I am still, and can always be, there.
The time is somewhere between midnight and dawn.
Two telescopes stand waiting for me - a 3" refractor and a 6" reflector named "Slubbitygullion".
More importantly, the deep space galactic clouds and star clusters are up there, waiting forever.
The Yugoslavian-printed book of constellations crackles open in my hands, I feel the slick cover and well-thumbed pages under my fingers and thumbs as I bend the spine of the little book back at the place I need tonight.
I smell the chilly night air. I see the patio illuminated only by starlight.
I breath into and out of a body 40 years back in time and a few thousand kilometeres away in space.
I was there.
And I am still, and can always be, there.
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