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19 August 2003 Entry: "The Stars"

I’ve just spent two weeks in a five-roomed Cornish cottage with four adults, seven children, three dogs and a cat. I took pen and paper - we used them for scoring in Contract Whist.
I was in the overflow tent in the field with my youngest son. The first night he woke saying:
“It’s dark, I’m scared. Put on the light.’
So I opened the tent flap and we looked at the stars. He said ‘Wow’.
We saw shooting stars, one with fire leaping from its tail.

I’ve been told that the Red Planet Mars is making the closest approach to Earth ever. On August 27th Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. It’ll rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m. But by the end of August, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m. We'll be witnessing something that no human has seen in recorded history.