Have you any as-yet-unfulfilled childhood dreams? Perhaps it’s the recent popularity of books urging us towards ‘Fifty things to do / places to go before you die’ that’s got me thinking. Or maybe it’s the comment I heard yesterday from positive psychologist Professor Neil Frude: ‘Life is a short-break holiday from being dead!’ Either way I guess it’s time to put my skates on and get on with a few of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that I’ve always promised myself. But first let’s see which ones I can tick off already . . .
As a child I was fascinated by the wonders of the night sky and loved to read books about astronomy – I was a geek! My dear old dad indulged this passion and although he wasn’t able to overrule my mother’s bedtime curfew and let me stay up to see legendary astronomer Patrick Moore on The Sky at Night, he did occasionally secretly wake me from a nice warm bed to gaze sleepily up at the frost-sharpened January skies and pick out the jewels in Orion’s belt. Continue reading