The eclipse

Today's priority is mounting a mic on something tall or getting up in the roof and dangling same on something that will be hit and miss to get stright. Spoke with Ron at Radio 74 and Lawrence in London, neither of whom had ever had the need to use tall mic stands, so I bought disposible coveralls in readiness for the suspension job.

Annular Eclipse of the Sun

Crossing the Pont Saint Marie onto l'Île St. Louis, I espied 3 people holding what looked like large X-ray charts to their eyes and looking at the sun; I realised that it was today when the solar eclipse takes place, so dived into my bag for the viewing glasses Col had sent me, and sure enough, the eclipse was at its height. I covered the lens of my Nikon with one of the glasses and took several photos, then rang Col to tell him what I'd seen.

Met David and Alec as they were leaving the church about 10am; they had never seen an eclipse before and as they were taking delight at the view, a local Gallery owner, Edith, came by and wondered what we were looking at. I gave her one of the two sets of glasses and she expressed great joy at seeing the elipse, she said it had made her day and that she'd never seen anything like that before. She thought the sun and moon were making love! That's the French for you.

Lunch was special; David then went off to swim/rest while Alec and I tracked down a tall rod to attach to a lighting stand lent us by our waiter from lunch. We got it all working by 5 - great relief - then wandered around the Notre-Dame area, sat in a restautrant and watched the world go by until heading back to the church for 7pm and recording and continued until 10pm.