More Sky Watching

"I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care"

Billy Bragg, A New England

"Seen a shooting star tonight
Slip Away.
Tomorrow will be another day.
Guess it's too late to say the things to you
That you needed to hear me say.
Seen a shooting star tonight
Slip away."

Bob Dylan, Shooting Star

We did. Walking across Coldham's Common (and let us confirm that our hams were chilled) at about 11.10 pm, we saw something shoot silent across the sky before blinking out somewhere over the Whitehill Estate. For the first instant, we thought "weird 'plane", since it was heading roughly in the direction of the airport. Then we thought "it's really too late for a final November 5th firework". Then we noticed the silence. And the arc its tail made across the sky. A brief moment of celestial splendour.

We've never seen one before.

We didn't wish.

It was a tad too late for Looby Loo's Nativity play earlier this afternoon.

[Odd. We've never looked at the lyrics for A New England before, learning them from the Kirsty McColl single and then the track on the Billy Bragg LP. We'd always heard that third line as a statement: "It's wrong to wish...." It was a question all along.]

The Plan

What sort of birthday cake, we wondered, do we make for a five-year old pink fairy-mermaid-princess-obsessed girl when there will be boys at the party too? Going all out girly seems cruel. Ah, we think, an island with flowers and a mermaid sitting on a rock, and maybe a fairy, and then lurking around one side a pirate with a treasure chest. Kind of Peter Pan without the copyright problems. So the plan is: bake cake, go out shopping for figures, then panic and make them ourselves. The deadline: ultmiately the party tomorrow afternoon, which means before we shop tomorrow morning, whcih means a late night session or getting it done before 3 pm.

An impossible dream? We'll see.

Must put some mince pies in too.