What Solar Eclipse?

Did you see the Solar Eclipse?  Like many, I spent the week chatting to my 3 children about the solar eclipse due to happen 20th March. We looked at information on the internet, spoke about the special glasses and other methods for looking at an eclipse and how rare it was…

So we were rather excited going to sleep on Thursday night, hoping that our little spot of the UK would be clear blue skies come Friday morning.
The kids got up early ( they were in my bed before 7-usually a no-no) and were looking forward to the spectacle.
Their school had asked for the children to arrive at the earlier time of 8:40 , so after some quick dressing and breakfast completed, they headed to school on their scooters with me running alongside to keep up, looking at the grey and overcast skies optimistically.

The solar eclipse was meant be at it’s most noticeable at around 9:20 so the children all filed into the playground hoping to catch a glimpse. The school had purchased the required glasses for each child to use. They had great fun putting them on and exclaiming ” I can’t see anything now!”. In their class groups they stood staring up at the sky hoping for a break in the clouds. Looking at each other expectantly, wanting to see something…
After a while, a darkness did descend, but not very noticeably…enough to trigger the schools security lighting though.
After 20 minutes of waiting and hoping, the children went back to class. I guess they would get to watch the solar eclipse on their whiteboards via some or other news channel.

The next eclipse is only in 2026….so we’ll have to wait until then to get a proper view. I do hope they will be as excited then as they are now…doubtful as by 2026, I’ll have three teenagers 😉  Can’t say we didn’t try!