what it should have been
Toby Melville UK
what it was
what it was
Dusky skies. Like a miracle that didn't happen, Geneva was drenched in obscurity with a ghost-feather jet d'eau.
10 am: hunched over morning coffee outside the chalet café behind the Brunschwig monument, guarded by freshly sanded stone lions and gryphons. Moms with prams, the unemployed, the rich, the retired or a combination of the above with their fresh tartines and quince jam, engaged in conversation. Miraculously only one woman squawking into a cell phone.
10:15 am: light through haze like foreign news penetrating complacency, not quite real.
10:34 am: sitting feeling stupid with my pinhole card, reflecting card and binoculars facing the big nada eclipse. My app let me down, informing me of a sunny Geneva at 9 am. The app subtly laid a virtual cloud over its virtual sun, but too late.
10:45 am: The grey of 68% virtual obscurity. A disappointment of sky over Lac Léman. I pay and leave.
The day of course improves, with scattered sunshine in the afternoon.
Waiting for the next one in 2026.
