And the summer sun is here, the nights are lighter and the days are longer. A lot of positive things are happening; my wife has lost six stone in weight! My son is in his third year of his engineering apprenticeship and has recently designed and made a chess set out of metal. My daughter is about to take exams again after her second year at college, all positive stuff. And I’ve bought a new telescope, a Newtonian reflector with tripod. I love gazing up at the night sky when it’s clear, I will get more enjoyment out of it now that I can get up close and personal with my new optical equipment. The moon fascinates me, I like the contrast of a half moon; looking at the valleys and hills picked out by sunlight and enhanced by the shadows. Jupiter and Saturn will also be targets for me, clusters and galaxies too, they’re all up there. I just need to point my telescope in the right direction.
My new book ‘Points of Reference’ has a lot to do with direction and the choices made every day. What if I’d looked out and seen a huge meteor? What if I’d not looked? Would I believe another person’s account of the event? Would they believe me if I saw it and they didn’t? Many comets are discovered by amateur astronomers, could I discover one or would it be me that stayed in that particular night? Only to find that the next day that a friend had had a comet named after him. That would be annoying!
What if someone could design and make a device to jump time, space and parallel universes, however crude or primitive? What if it worked? Then what would happen if the wrong people tried to get hold of it?
I like the idea of time machines, imagine if we had the opportunity to return to our childhood and change one thing. What would that one thing be? How would it affect our future? Would we be any happier with an alternative life? That one change thing could alter our entire existence.
And would it be worth it…
