Maybe New Year in Wanaka a few years ago came close, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Milky Way look as clear as it does right now. And just ‘above’ it, Jupiter glowing with a fierce orange intensity.
Maybe it’s the lack of light pollution or that the air is so much clearer but it’s amazing to be able to make out both Jupiter and Saturn. It’s almost as if I could reach out and touch them. Except it’s impossible to even travel there.
I suppose it’s quite apt to be staring out into the vastness if space and marvelling at the huge distances between the planets, whilst lying on a tropical island surrounded by the huge Southern Pacific Ocean. It’s almost poetically parallel.
At least we only have a four hour plane ride to get us back to Auckland. A trip to our nearest celestial neighbour would take considerably longer than that and I doubt there’d be enough complimentary Sauvignon Blanc to get us through the journey.
And, without warning, I’m suddenly reminded about a poster we had in our downstairs loo in our house in Leeds. It’s text Mexican Vultures Enjoy Making Jam Sauce Using NewPlums taking the centre stage. “What now?” I hear you ask.
If you ever find yourself in need to recall the order of the planets in our solar system then that’s all you need to remember.
Mexican = Mercury
Vultures = Venus
Enjoy = Earth
Making = Mars
Jam = Jupiter
Sauce = Saturn
Using = Uranus
New = Neptune
Plums = Pluto
Simple and you can’t go wrong. That is until they find another planet tucked away or Pluto loses its status as a planet. In which case you’re on your own.
Right enough of glazing into space - I’ll leave that for next week when I’m back in work. For the time being there’s a much more pressing time and space conundrum to resolve. The three hour Happy Hour is about to end and there’s a jug of Cook Island lager with our names on it.....
