Wonder stuff, facebook, supermoon, and noses...

‘These streets used to look big, this town used to look like a city, these people used to talk to me. Caught in my shadow.’ - The Wonder Stuff

Facebook is a marvellous window to the world. I can only imagine what it brings to someone who is housebound or separated from all the people they love, their friends, by distance. I’m sure there are millions of stories out there that would warm the heart.

Yes I know that it can be a dangerous place too. But I think on balance it brings more good than evil.

I’m spending a lot of time on my own at the moment. No bad thing maybe. The weather has been good and I have wireless so I can sit in my Italianate courtyard garden, aka my back yard, drink my coffee, search for jobs, and network - sometimes even in the sunshine.

That’s what I’m doing now. It’s quite warm in the sun and I’m totally enclosed and alone, but even so thanks to the wonders of the internet, broadband, technology generally - I’m not. I’m actually out there all over the place communicating with people I know and even some that I don’t.

Facebook is such a great place to pick up bits of information and grab some memories. It’s a bit like going to a coffee morning. Liz posted a lyric to a song that I used to love this morning. ‘Caught in My Shadow’ by the Wonder Stuff. Barbara made me aware that it was the Cheltenham Gold Cup today, even posted a couple of tips. Steph reminded me it was Red Nose day (I’d completely forgotten), and Sharon (who I only met a handful of times) let me know that the world is set to experience the biggest full moon for almost two decades when the satellite reaches its closest point to Earth this weekend.

I love all things moon so this was interesting news to me. On Saturday the full moon will appear incredibly large in the sky as it reaches a point known as the 'lunar perigee'. It’ll be the closest it will have passed us since 1992 and will appear to be up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter in the sky, if we are lucky.

Sometimes it’s called a ‘supermoon’ and they have been linked to extreme weather events and other natural phenomena - earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. The last time the moon passed very closely to the Earth was on 10 January 2005, around the time of the Indonesian earthquake that measured 9.0 on the Richter scale. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was also associated with an unusually large full moon and there were supermoons in 1955, 1974 and 1992 – all with a variety of extreme weather events which killed thousands of people.

All very worrying. It makes you think about Japan. We’ll see. I wonder if Barbara’s horses will come in.

Oh well, Time to put my red nose on.