Moon moments

With our lives and living quarters on the brink of change, I find myself thinking of what I'll remember and miss about the apartment that has been our home for nearly two years.

Chief will be the view from windows and balcony, where we have a front row seat to the schoolyard, far more entertaining and less intimidating than we'd feared, and sightings of many of the celestial events on offer.

Six months ago, I had a cold and clear encounter with the eclipse of this year's Wolf Moon. First, the bottom was nibbled away and the orb seem to slowly vanish into its own cloud, leaving a pewter marble, with a hint of an orange glow,  hanging above the schoolyard.

As the earth's shadow finally engulfed it, the stars became clearer. There were two bright stars above it seeming to point to this globe that I could almost pluck out of the sky, and after a few minutes, I noticed the constellation of Orion twinkling to the right through the bare branches of the tree next door. Below, a group of men chatted as they passed around a telescope, and a woman strode down the sidewalk, not looking up at all.

I ventured out every twenty minutes or so, watching the dark disc rise higher and higher, and remembering another blood moon, maybe about ten years ago in Hades, when the dark red moon glowed between our house and our neighbours', and people trudged by. I wanted to shout at them: "Did you see it? Can you see it?" The Resident Fan Boy remembered another one in Victoria, when he couldn't convince four-year-old elder daughter to come see it. I was able to persuade younger daughter to come out on the balcony to see this one.

Six months later, a recent treat has been the Strawberry Moon, rising at the same time as an unusually close Jupiter, who glittered through the thick summer leaves, if you knew where to look.  Across the street, a rather grungy fellow had enthroned himself on someone's discarded armchair - it's also the season for our neighbours getting rid of unwanted furniture.  Not particularly wanted either, he grumbled to himself under the moon, and ignored the huge planet over his shoulder in the southeast.