Whenever I am abroad, especially in winter, I barely think of Manchester. As we walked along the promenade after breakfast, listening to the Atlantic Ocean lapping up on the sandy shores and rocks, the dreadful rainy cold weather that we have to endure in February in the UK is so far from my brain that Manchester may as well be on another planet.
Even the evenings are beautiful and clear in Lanzarote, if not a little chilly. All that means is that I have to wear long trousers instead of shorts as we dine within earshot of the waves. And talking about planets, we actually managed to see a couple of them with the naked eye. Mrs PM mentioned that the news had an article about all the planets being aligned. I love a good sunset and as we were sitting in a bar watching our star slowly descend behind the horizon, seemingly into the horizon, I used an app on my smartphone to find the planets – the app is called Sky Map and well worth a download. Here are a couple of sunset pictures I took.
Mercury was close to the sun but invisible and a bright spot nearby turned out to be Venus. As the sun disappeared and the sky became darker, other points of light in the firmament became visible and, with the aid of Sky Map, I could clearly identify Saturn, which looked a little dull compared to Venus but still there. The app also told me that just below Venus but perhaps too far away to see with the naked eye was Neptune.
As I moves around the sky, I then identified and saw Jupiter and Uranus. Jupiter was perfectly clear and Uranus, like Saturn, was quite dull but just about visible.
The only one I couldn’t find was Mars.
It would have been amazing to have seen this exact sky with a telescope from the desert where there is no light pollution to shield the planets. I remember a trip to Barbados where we had a little session with an astronomer who used a telescope to find Saturn for us. That was amazing and I could even see the rings.
On our last morning, we had a leisurely breakfast and had time to take a walk along the promenade for a coffee before having to return to the airport for our flight home. I enjoyed sitting by the ocean, listening to the waves and enjoying the clear blue skies and the sun reflecting off glistening turquoise water.
I felt totally relaxed.
About eight hours later we had landed at Manchester Airport and were in a cab, driving through the rainy cold streets of my home city. I looked through the rain spotted windows of the cab and the sky was dark and covered in clouds that hid any stars and planets. Part of me was disappointed and I craved sitting by the beach, stargazing while listening to the calm sea. Mrs PM was excited because she was starting her new job the following day and she was also looking forward to seeing her “babies”, that is our two domineering masters, our cats Ziggy and Star(dust).
I allowed my mind to briefly return the scene from eight hours ago, the taste of the coffee, the warm breeze, the sound of the ocean, the colours, the people.
And then I realised that in a few moments I would be home.
My home is my castle, the place where I feel most comfortable. It’s like my central office, even though I don’t work anymore and I love being there. My brief longing for Lanzarote gradually faded and once I had braved the rain, entered my house and unpacked, I had the chance to sit down with a cup of tea and think about my trip. Star(dust) put her two front paws on my stomach and stared at me as she purred. She then lay down next to me, clinging to my leg like a feline leech and fell asleep. Ziggy was sitting next to Mrs PM.
I then started thinking about our next trip to Malta in May, where we will be taking Mrs PM’s mum for a celebration of her 80th birthday. I will once again be beside the sea with a chance to explore Valetta. It will be warm sunny and in terms of weather, a million miles from Manchester.
Mrs PM broke my reverie.
“I’m glad to be home,” she said.
And, to be perfectly honest, so was I.
