Freya and Myfanwy live the 2026 solar eclipse. I met two friends, both alike in wit, in fair Twickenham where we lay our scene. It was the balmiest of evenings on the Riviera, and people gathered slowly as they do in the Med when the sun has done its worst for the day. Ok the poetry ends there because the twittering of two searingly intelligent young women started blipping on my radar.
They were getting frustrated trying to look at something we weren’t supposed to be looking at. Not through any fault of their own, I learned. Unlike me, a slacker who turned up unprepared, they had taken their homework seriously. Amongst their impedimenta: extra sunglasses, a colander and some junk modelling. Nothing was working but their refusal to slump back and just enjoy another setting sun was admirable.
For my benefit this time, they feebly waved the colander about over the only available white surface, the reverse side of their tote bag. We saw all the pretty dots yes… And? We still can’t say, I SAW the black bit cross the sun. My husband sent a shot through of his colander experiment and the dots appeared like kidney beans, so was that it?
Tadashi’s colander eclipse
Hubby then sends through a photo as he attacks his pastie supper, as foodies do. The best tribute to the eclipse so far…
Tadashi’s eclipse supper
Freya had been told not to take photos, it would ruin the camera – the Perseus-Medusa conundrum – but noticed others taking photos in reverse view, their backs to the main attraction. Ingenious. We tried it. I got a glaring yellow splat, but Freya was heartened by her orb ‘with a nibble taken out’. Hurrah.
Freya’s phone eclipse
A family nearby with the prerequisite glasses, chilling in a rowing boat in the middle of a sandpit, put their glasses up to the camera lens to take their photos. M: There are a lot of ideas in the room (said deadpan, pure Fleabag)
Of all the low-tech suggestions fizzing on the Net, the one that caused them the most consternation came from the BBC: two cereal packets (M: ‘M&S’) which they’d optimistically turned into ‘projectors’. A 3 minute job, but Freya ‘has trouble following instructions’, so M ended up making both. Sadly I have no photos of the double act trying every which way to make them work.
The word underwhelming was mooted. M: I have no idea what I’m looking at or what I’m supposed to do with it. The instructions were dire. Out here with my back to the eclipse, looking into an empty box, feeling like I missed a trick. F: I’ve been shafted, I could have bought the glasses off a man at Waterloo, but no, we trusted Aunty. And they didn’t even tell me how to use it.
Slightly galling, Freya’s boyfriend then sends a smug photo of the image from his dad’s telescope which has a special filter for looking at the sun, but we’re getting somewhere. Now we can say we’ve seen it, twice times 2 appliances removed. She sweetly airdrops it to me and I take their aliases. I see another take on this over-hyping the media just loves to indulge in during the Silly Season.
Freya’s boyfriend’s dad’s telescope eclipse
With the sun dipping below the rooftops, thus ended a charming, chance encounter, one of many thousands around the world on Eclipse Evening, I’ve no doubt. I said my goodbyes, telling them to check LondonMums in a few days, and wended my way to St Mary’s for bellringing practice. As I bumped into other ringers mustering at the foot of the tower, Matthew summed it up perfectly: Bit of a damp squib compared to 1999.
While we experimented in Britain, our London Mums magazine editor Monica Costa was in Italy also trying different things out to watch the solar eclipse.
Hi! I have a ‘portfolio’ lifestyle, jumping between mum, journalist, curator of my own museum, chauffeur, French tutor and carer. I love music, dance, theatre and dancing in the evenings, and helping others to enjoy life. I’ve been through the mill healthwise, along with my family, and am grateful for every day.
