jonathan.beckett@gmail.com

The Remains of the Day

After the children had gone to bed last night, I sat in the garden with my other half, enjoying a few minutes peace and quiet with a bottle of wine and our thoughts. Welit the chiminea, pulled our chairs up to keep warm, and listened to the birds finding their places in the treetops around the garden.

While gazing at the half lit moon, and figuring out that yes, that little pink dot behind it is Mars, we spotted a bright light speeding across the sky.“I bet that's the international space station”“No, it's too brightit's got to be an aeroplane”“Noit's too fast, and it's silent”I downloaded a free app on my phone, and rebooted it (don't get me started on how rubbish Samsung mobile phones areI'm getting a Google Nexus next time), it turned out she was rightthe International Space Station has passed overhead a few minutes beforeand would do so again an hour latertravelling at something in the region of seven kilometres a second.

Suddenly our world seemed quite small, and our achievements quite large.