LIFE for me continues its march across the sands of time this week.
I seem to be ageing quicker than a mummy suddenly exposed to fresh air.
Forget the Courvoisier, pass the Olay and be quick!
At least there there’s still room enough to accommodate the candles on my birthday cake – my gran, who turned 95 in May, was struggling.
But even she didn’t have a patch on my dear old great auntie who was 100 last year.
You might have guessed it was my birthday this week. I’m not quite 30, but I’m definitely the wrong side of 20, how on earth did this happen?
A wise man once said: “Nothing is faster than the speed of life.”
And to reinforce the point with a quote from my boy Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
So to that end I’m planning on heading to the Kielder Observatory in the Borders.
Under one of the least light-polluted skies in the country, nestled in the depths of the forest, lies the observatory.
Kielder is what you might call a star-gazing camp, equipped with fully-functional igloo-style tents and a marvellous array of telescopes to do a healthy bit of planet spotting. But for me its not just a nice little departure from the traditional birthday bash, it’s also a chance to reflect.
August heralds the return of the darker nights as summer wanes towards autumn and we’re going to Kielder to observe the annual Perseid meteor shower.
Last year I ventured to the third largest city in Russia, the capital of Siberia; Novosibirsk, to witness a total solar eclipse.
It was a fantastic experience, the conditions were perfect and with ice cold vodka in hand it was enjoyed on the sandy shores of an artificial beach on the banks of the Ob river.
Next year around this time I’ll be arm in arm with my dad walking down the aisle but a few weeks before my big day, there is another total solar eclipse to be had, this one can best be enjoyed from Easter Island.
As we all rocket through our busy lives ebbing and flowing like a great meandering river, sometimes we forget to stop for a moment, like Ferris said, and take a look around.
Our troubles can grow from nothing into enormous concerns consuming us whole if we let them, eating away at our very being.
But nothing reminds us more of the insignificance of all those troubles and indeed ourselves than observing and understanding the magic and wonder of the night sky.
It’s peppered with a billion times more planets and stars as there are grains of sand on every beach on earth.
But even space gets cold, black, dark and barren as we delve further into the unknown – just as life can sometimes take us down a deeper darker road.
As fast as a shooting star jets across the sky, life speeds on.
And I remain forever in awe of the mysteries of this universe, the glory and splendour, the light and the dark.
Just as I continue to be baffled by life’s uncharted highways.