Celestial Portents

The sun sets on an era
March 2015

If you happen to read this post as it goes live you cant fail to be aware that it has suddenly gone dark outside, as the UK experiences a near total eclipse of the sun.

Its a fitting day for the two great heavenly bodies which influence us most to come into alignment and cast a shadow over us, a celestial portent if ever there was one. You see, as the sun has been setting the completion of the sale of our home of 25 years has been completed and so in a few minutes the sun will rise for the second time today and mark a fresh beginning in lives.

I cant say that I believe that the two events are in any way connected but in the same way that I know exactly where I was during the last eclipse on 11th August 1999 (sitting with my family on the tip of Portland Bill) I will always know where I was today - sitting on our boat in Calf Heath waiting for the guys from Kinver Canopies to come and measure up for a new cratch cover. 

And so starts a new era for the Ahabs. Hopefully in a few weeks we will have moved into our new home in Aldridge and be one big step closer to our plan to be spending six months afloat each year, travelling around picking wild fruit, making it into preserves and selling the end products at canal based events around the country. If all goes according to plan we will do a circuit of Midlands events at the beginning and end of each season and then spend the summer period making lazy explorations of the more distant sections we have never been able to reach.

And so as the sunlight returns to banish the short lived cold of the eclipse induced darkness, we raise a toast to the future, a new and exciting era where "the best is yet to come".