So far away

yet so close you feel you could touch it.

My boy is home. I feel more like my usual self, despite a bit of an up and down day, where I spent a lot of it questioning myself and my ability to make decisions.

To remove these work related ponderings from my mind I have soaked up the energy from Jimbo - I know it's ridiculous to say it, but the house has returned to 'normal' this evening - the whole place feels different. That one extra, little body makes all the difference.

He's knackered. It appears that he has had a good time. Apparently, his team won the tag rugby this morning. He also won "best dressed" at the final evening last night and something else. I have had wine in the past half an hour, and for the life of me the 'something else' has escaped my measly, piffling little brain.

I have a mountain of washing to do - most of the things they have done have been either down on the edge of the menai straits (raft building, canoeing), down at the beach (beach sculptures and beachcombing) and wandering around getting muddy. 4 changes of clothes and still he came back with no socks on, because they were all soaked!

It's good to have him home.

Have also had the telescope out this evening. Bloody hell, the temperature has dropped. My fingers and toes have just regained sensation.

Have now managed a degree of polar alignment with the scope although not perfect, and aligning to stars is not yet accurate - however, for a first real go at spending quality time with it I was pleased.

I confess that when I aligned it to Jupiter, put my 10mm lens and 2x barlow to magnify, I was utterly gobsmacked. I tell not a word of a lie when I say that the stripes of the storms surrounding the planet were visible, and the 4 moons were almost perfectly aligned. Jupiter is in opposition at the end of the month, so the Great Red Spot should be visible. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a clear night.

Also, by then, I hope to have got the knack of attaching the camera or webcam directly to the scope. Believe it or not, this shot was taken by putting my little lumix camera up to the eyepiece and pressing the shutter button. Not bad! Doesn't compare to the awesomeness of viewing it directly, but you get the idea.

With that, it's more wine and soon to bed.

Thank you so much for all of your kind comments and support over the last couple of days. Getting closer to resolution - Tuesday should see it sorted, I hope.