It seems we had a Strawberry Moon last night. Of course, as with so many celestial phenomena, we didn’t get to see it from our house. So I’ve “borrowed” other people’s photos.
Even though some people manage to take photos of a pinkish moon, or maybe they photoshop them, the moon isn’t actually pink.
The name originates from Native American traditions, where the June full moon marked the start of the wild strawberry harvest season in parts of North America. Quite poetical those Native Americans!
This particular strawberry moon, so they say, was special because of being so low in the sky because of something called a “major lunar standstill”, which sounds quite dramatic, like something from a science fiction story, an event presaging disaster for the earth, so I looked it up: A major lunar standstill is an astronomical event that occurs approximately every 18.6 years when the moon reaches its maximum declination, resulting in the northernmost and southernmost moonrise and moonset positions being furthest apart. This phenomenon affects how high or low the moon appears in the sky and can influence tidal patterns.
Anyway, the last time this phenomenon occurred was in 2006 – and it won’t return until 2043. I suppose that its being so low in the sky explains why I couldn’t see it, despite taking a look out of the window at about 3.00 am when I woke up and to went the loo. The local hills would have been hiding it. So it goes.
It feels as though the half term holiday is only just over but already articles are appearing with the regular moan about what to do with he children during the “long” summer holiday. Compared with some countries our summer break is not as “long” as all that, probably because we also have half term holidays. The problem of “what to do with the children” still remains.
Rhiannon Picton-James, writing in The Guardian, tells us:
“The problem is, there’s more school leave than parents are legally entitled to take from work, and we’re living in a two-income economy. If two parents added both of their 5.6 weeks of leave together, and were guaranteed the leave they asked for, it still wouldn’t cover the amount of school holiday – and that’s assuming they never took any time off together as a family. The school calendar hasn’t been updated since it was created in the Victorian era, when the way we worked and parented looked very different. To top it all, this generation of boomer grandparents don’t want to help either, because they want to “enjoy retirement” and go on holidays instead.”
Yes, “we’re living in a two-income economy” and I am aware that most families need those two incomes just to pay the mortgage and live day to day. However, there is a part of me that reflects that nowadays almost everyone wants everything to be perfect. The children must each have a bedroom of their own (no sharing); there must be two bathrooms; the kitchen needs ALL mod cons; the family needs two cars, if not more; and you have to go on expensive holidays.
I was fortunate in that as I was a teacher my holidays usually coincided with the children’s. Having said that, when they were small enough to need childcare, which wasn’t easy to find for us boomer parents, I was working in adult education and wasn’t paid for the holidays. Some of our “holidays” meant going to stay with my parents who lived in Southport - another bit of good fortune: we had the seaside! And for quite some time foreign holidays meant camping in Brittany. Oh, and this boomer grandparent does help out with looking after the grandchildren.
Okay. That’s another rant over and done with.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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