by TheOstrich » 20 Mar 2015, 11:42
Well despite all the doomsayers, it was a beautiful, bright, cloudless sky here in Birmingham. For the 5 minutes or so of the maximum eclipse, probably about 85%, it went very still and dull and eerie. Difficult to describe, a sort of gunmetal blue effect. It was quite ethereal - but that was it.
As Kaz said, not a patch on August 1999 of course, when the totality passed over the English Channel. Master O and I had freedom rail tickets that week for the south-west, so we made it down from Somerset to Exeter in good time. All the trains going on to Plymouth were packed, so we didn't think we'd get any further, but suddenly a Cardiff- Paignton local turned up, fairly empty, so off we set for Torbay. We watched the sun gradually start to lose shape through the wispy clouds as we travelled, and when we disembarked at Paignton, it was a very, very strange experience. In the gloom, hundreds of folk were flocking past the station and walking down to the promenade - we followed them. The sea-front was absolutely crowded. There was heavy cloud, so we couldn't actually see the sun.
Suddenly there was a mewing, and a huge flock of seagulls flew out to sea. That was eerie in itself. Then suddenly, (although it must have taken a couple of minutes) everything went totally black - apart from a brilliant orange rim between the cloud and the sea right out on the horizon. All you could see was hundreds and hundreds of flash-bulbs going off all around the curve of the Torbay coastline as folk took snaps and selfies. And then the blackness lifted, and with a happy chatter everyone turned to total strangers and said "Wow, what about that?" or similar. And we dispersed and departed.
That was an event, a once-in-a-lifetime happening which will live forever in both my and MasterO's memory .....