2016 already and no Buck Rodgers suit or personal helicopter yet

Time sure does gallop by these days and last year was something of a fast forward.   It has been a great year, particularly for an astronomy Geek, with lots of events.  Marred only slightly by a recurrence of the dreaded kidney stone and the news that I am diabetic and must stop eating nice things.  Despite these setbacks it has whizzed by at a rate of knots which seem to be accelerating with each passing year.
So here are some of the highlights summarised.

In March there was a solar eclipse visible from our latitudes and we were able to watch the sun being covered by the moon's shadow.

In May we visited an owl sanctuary and got to hold owls

In June we explored South Dakota and visited the endless seeming badlands.  I am so glad we had good roads and a car rather than making this journey in a covered wagon as the early settlers must have done.

Whilst in SD we visited Mount Rushmore, ticking one more item off my bucket list

July was a busy month, the New Horizons spacecraft, after a nine year journey, made a successful flyby of Pluto changing our view from this -

- to this

..

Also in July we visited the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford

Finally in July, I part exchanged my old car for a VW, only to find out that VW had been cooking the books on diesel engines for a few years and you could not be sure anything they told you about your car until you had tried it out yourself - for a few hundred road miles.  It seems petrol engines were not innacurate and my car's stats seem to match the stated ones given by VW.

Whilst on the subject of dishonesty, each month, our food products reduce in size whilst keeping the same size packet.  They must think we are all stupid and will not notice.  Maybe a small price hike would be more honest than just ripping us off by small increments and keeping the price the same.  How long before we get an empty packet for our money?

In August we went to see my sister and nephew and whilst there visited Woodbridge

During 2015 the Dawn spacecraft, having left Vesta, moved into orbit around Ceres giving the best views of this dwarf planet ever obtained.

In November Paris was attacked and everyone went paranoid for a while.

 

 I am surprised that no one seemed to point out that these people are terrible cowards and outside their own territories never make any tactical attacks, but pick on unarmed civillians knowing they will not be in any danger until the police arrive.  Then rather than face the music for their callous actions, most often, they will commit suicide or force the police to shoot them and so avoid punishment.  The interesting thing about these attacks, something that has been with us since way, way back, is that it never works.  No one ever learns from history and so they keep turning up, Anarchists, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Free Welsh, the IRA and these latest people.  We are not cowed by their terrorist action, we have seen it all before and in fact become more determined not to accede to whatever demands they make.

In September we got up in the small hours to watch the moon turn red during a total eclipse.

Then just in time for Christmas no end of people were flooded out, reminding me of the time my house was flooded way back in 1977.  This is a photo I took that day. My house is just about where the lorry is.  Having suffered the awful problems of just a slight flood, my heart goes out to those peple still cleaning up or living in tempory accomodation whilst their uninhabitable home is slowly returned to normal.  I hope that the new year does not bring them further floods and they can get back to normal as soon as possible.

I

  

Soon it was Christmas and we were lucky enough not to be flooded out and had a good Christmas with the family.  Then seemingly suddenly it was 2016 and we were heading back home.

Not the best journey I have had.  The bulk of the journey was three hours of heavy rain on the motorway, fourtunately with no massive holdups, which was something of a miracle.  

So a happy New Year to everyone.