There is an entryway to negotiate just before the bridge so I had to watch my feet rather than the sky.
When I stopped above to look again at the planets – they were no longer there. Must be leaves, sprung into life on the trees by the warm weather, blocking the view.
But no – the planets had moved behind the house.
Well I knew they moved fast – one evening last week when the bus was delayed I stood at the stop, gloved hand shielding out the light from the street lamps in town, watching Venus & Jupiter as they moved in stately glacial fashion, & reminded myself at what unimaginable speed they must really be going.
Of course they had not moved that fast, from where I stood, on Saturday night; it was just that I had failed to take into account the very slight curvature in the road & its effect on my angle of view
Coincidentally I have just started to read The World of Gerard Mercator by Andrew Taylor, with its account of how Columbus, with the notoriously untrustworthy navigation devices available to him, literally never knew where he was, particularly when wrestling with them on the pitching & tossing deck of a ship. And yet by 1582 the English seafarer George Beste could write:
Within the memory of man, within these fourscore years, there hath been more new countries & regions discovered than in 5000 years before; yes, more than half the world hath been discovered by men that are yet (or may very well for their age be) alive.And we think that we live in a world that is changing more rapidly than we can comprehend.
Still, the experience has inspired me to dig out my compass & make an effort once again to be in a position to orient myself at all times.
