The Moon in June (facing the wrong way)

Don’t know how life has been for you recently, dear reader, but speaking for myself, it’s been a bit busy. In particular, I have spent the last couple of weeks busily flying halfway round the world. Not only round the world either, but quite a bit way down it. In short, I shot off to the southern hemisphere for a spot of work. If writing a review of a luxury resort can be called work.

As is often the way with these things, there was so much stuff to write about I couldn’t fit it all in. So had to leave some of the more interesting bits out of the reviews. Which was a shame. Rather than let all these interesting bits fall by the wayside, thought I would jot them down in a nice, neat list, make a display of them right here, right now. Mainly because good people like you deserve all the lovely things of life to be given to you, on a line in a column. So, here goes. My little list for my little friends. Things I learned when I went to the southern hemisphere.

No. 1 - probably the most obvious thing you notice when you get off the plane, is the weather. As we are strolling into summer over here, they are waltzing into winter down there. Which is odd, mainly because you still need lots of suncream and mozzie spray when you get there. Mind you, since I was heading off to Mauritius, the land of the dodo and also a tropical island paradise, it was hardly a surprise to find out that the weather is always quite warm and wonderful out there.

No 2 - talking of which. Dodo’s. Those tubby flightless birds from that isle, the ones that are no longer with us. Turns out there are many reasons for their extinction. Being relatively tame and tasting like turkey probably didn’t help their cause much. But even worse, were the cats and rats Europeans introduced to the island. Saddest salient fact of all, is that apparently the very last surviving dodo was eaten by a sailor from Bristol. Sigh. Hardly a feather in our civic cap.

No. 3 - talking of weird and wonderful creatures. We need to consider fruit bats. Admittedly, you get plenty of these in the northern hemisphere too. But still. I can never get over the sight of these oversized beasties lumbering across the skyline at dusk. On their way to chow down on some tasty fruits and flowers. Most impressive. And odd. They definitely look like something leftover from the dinosaurs. To put them in context, in case you’re not familiar, they’re roughly the same size as a small dog, with wings. I mean, we have a small dog of our very own right here at Cullimore Cottage, Rufus the small dog. Which means when I find myself staring at a fruit bat, or more accurately, a flying fox, flapping by, I often wonder how Rufus would deal with wings made out of rubbery skin. Expect he wouldn’t mind them so much, wings are always useful. But the fruitarian diet would be the end of him.

No. 4 - The moon in June. Actually, the moon at any month of the year. Since they see it from a different point of view down there, it looks slightly different. Not a lot different and not all the time, but enough to make you scratch your head. If you are that way inclined. In short, when the moon is waxing or waning, gibbous, shaped like a segment from an orange, it faces the other way round to the one we see up here.

Up here, if you pop outside late at night, as I often do when Rufus is in need of a garden visit before bedtime, you will see a crescent moon. If you lift up your right hand right now and curve it like a banana, you will see what I’m talking about. Whereas, in the southern hemisphere, they see it shaped like the letter, C. If you lift up your left hand right now and curve it like a banana , you will see just what I’m talking about. May not sound like much of a difference. In truth, it isn’t much of a difference. But for some reason I really can’t fathom, I found it more than a trifle exciting. Probably says more about me than about the moon, but there you go.

Could go on, but hopefully that will be enough to give you a flavour of the fun things you find when you fly off to far flung foreign climes. Hope you are enjoying life wherever you may find yourself right now.

Until next time, all the best