Tonal eclipse of the sun - as seen at Knocking Hoe - projected through a kitchen colander onto a sheet of white card. I didn't want to buy a pair of special glasses (or go blind) so this simple variation on a pinhole camera did the job. In fact we frequently get brief glimpses of sun without going blind (not to mention admiring sunrises and sunsets). Nonetheless looking straight at the sun high in the sky for seconds or longer is clearly a no-no.

 My old buddy Gordon suggested we take a trip out to the Hoe. Good call- the primal humps of the Hoe speak to my inner pagan. We picked a spot looking over the patchwork fields of Bedfordshire. The landscape was golden brown, sky blue, electric heat.

 As the eclipse began to happen an eerie twilight spread across the land, the air became cool, the rays of the sun ceased to burn the skin. A different twilight to sunset, the shadows didn't lengthen as when the sun goes down.

 I have to report we didn't see the sun go dark with a bright corona. Throughout it seemed to remain a luminous circle despite the dimming of the ambient light. That is intriguing because every news report shows the image of a dark sun. Perhaps it's fake news like those stories we landed on the moon and the earth is round...  (just kidding)

 Then again it was a partial eclipse when seen from England; possibly sufficient rays were illuminating the haze that the sun still looked full? Anyway the merest of squints, the colander and the lens of the camera saw a shining sun. Maybe it would have looked different through those special glasses?

 Actually my particular purpose for this quest was to experience the change of light and atmosphere here on planet Earth and the effect was indeed uncanny.