The Eclipse. An account from an Englishman Abroad

It took several frantic phone calls to change the arrangements. I shall never understand insurance companies. Their minimum fee is sufficient for a whole month's cover so I should have thought the simplest solution would be to issue cover documents valid for one month from the date of departure. For some obscure reason, they prefer to write your planned return date into the contract, with the result that the slightest change of plan requires a whole new set of paperwork.

Had I but known it, the ferry situation offered the first warning bells about the popularity of the event. All the ferries on the Wednesday evening were full and I had to book a hovercraft, much to Jen's trepidation. She isn't keen on flying and the fact that the altitude would be measured in inches didn't seem to make a great deal of difference.

All the problems were eventually overcome and the only expense was a mere £10 alteration fee. Thus it was that day before the eclipse saw Jenny and me motoring up through France, returning from our walking holiday in the Pyrenees. The day was inauspiciously grey. The thought of booking accommodation had never occurred to me. We had always managed to find rooms on spec. and I saw no reason to suppose the mere fact of an eclipse should make any difference.

Our plan was to get as close as possible to the band of totality, hopefully early enough to find a room in one of the hotels in the "Logis de France" book. In retrospect, this plan was flawed from the outset. I had seriously underestimated the interest this event would generate. There had been warnings on the British media about huge traffic jams blocking all the roads into Cornwall, and accommodation being booked years in advance, but I had assumed this was because Cornwall was a small place with only a few roads into it. The band of totality cut a huge swathe across the whole of Northern Europe and I reasoned that there would be plenty of room for all.

What I had failed to include in my calculations was the fact that the population of mainland Europe is orders of magnitude greater than that of the British Isles and a significant proportion of them had been bitten with eclipse fever. Not only that, I was also to discover that a large number of my fellow countrymen had decided that continental Europe offered the best opportunities for eclipse viewing.

Despite this, the roads were reassuringly clear on the Tuesday. Unfortunately, our progress North was slower than anticipated. A diversion occasioned by some road accident meant that we hadn't covered as much distance the day before and we had left ourselves a good 400 miles to cover. Both of us object to paying the extortionate French motorway tolls so nearly all our journey was on ordinary roads.

Everything that could conspire against us did, it seemed. I was even stopped, for the first time ever, for a random breath test. You can always tell when the French police are out and about because protocol requires traffic coming the other way to flash their headlights in warning. I presume the gendarmerie must be aware of this convention but I do sometimes wonder if they get fed up, never being able to catch anyone truly by surprise.

In response to the warning flashes from the oncoming lorries I was already on my best behaviour, and sticking religiously to the speed limit, as I entered town. Ahead of me I could see a small group of gendarmes at the roadside. In my past experience that's all they ever do - just stand and watch. Just quite what they expect to see when every approaching motorist has been forewarned of their presence, I don't know. On this occasion, however, they appeared to be doing an ancient mariner and stopping one in three. An English tourist was obviously too great a prize to miss and a gendarme stepped out into the road in front of me, holding up a hand in which he brandished a small unidentified object, about the size of an A5 sheet of paper.

As I pulled in, he walked instinctively to the left of the vehicle and handed the object, which turned out to be a plastic bag with a mouthpiece, to my wife in the front passenger seat, uttering the single word "gonflet". She was so taken by surprise that she nearly complied before realising that breathalising the passenger was probably not his intention and handed the device to me. With a not inconsiderable effort I managed to blow up the bag which made a rather comical noise a bit like a whoopee cushion, presumably designed with the French love of slapstick in mind and intended further to embarrass the motorist.

I handed back the inflated bag and he connected a second piece to it before deflating it under his arm like a set of bagpipes. Now satisfied that we were law abiding and that the best way to secure additional income for his country was to let us get on with being tourists, he allowed himself a brief smile and wished us a "bonne soiree". Deciding this was a good omen we set about our task of locating a hotel.

It was already getting dangerously late when we reached Chalons sur Marne. We tried a couple of Logis but the sympathetic looks our enquiries solicited soon convinced us that it was a hopeless task. We lowered our sights slightly and set off for the commercial zone on the fringe of town where the likes of Campanile and Formula 1 are to be found, but it was all in vain. The more considerate establishments had hung "complet" signs on their doors but most preferred the more amusing sport of attracting would-be customers into the foyer where they could be told there was no room at the inn.

Finally we admitted defeat. We returned to town and found a café for supper before setting off for the motorway with the sole purpose of finding a service station whose car park, we reasoned, would provide the safest environment for a night in the car. So it was that we arrived, late on Tuesday evening, at the Aire de Reims, Champagne Nord.

The atmosphere at the service station was like a holiday camp. At 11 pm. there weren't many spaces left and the proportion of English cars was high. There were a number of camper vans and several other cars which were clearly going to provide improvised sleeping accommodation. Some people were sitting out in deck chairs and others were setting up tents on the grass. Fortunately, it was warm. A couple of Dutch lads even slept out in the open, just unrolling their sleeping bags on the grass. The service station toilets were packed with campers bathing children in the sinks or stripped down to their underwear to perform the evening's ablutions.

It wasn't a particularly comfortable night even with the car seats wound back to nearly horizontal, but we were better off than some. Our immediate neighbours had at least two children sharing the back seat of their car. Tiredness verging on exhaustion set in fairly quickly and, although waking frequently to adjust position, I managed to doze through most of the next few hours.

We were awakened at around 6:30 by a shower of rain which caused the al fresco sleepers some consternation. After watching the amusing spectacle of them leaping up in their boxer shorts and hastily dressing, we decided further sleep was unlikely and followed the dampened campers into the cafeteria for a breakfast of coffee and croissants.

We decided not to stay at the service station to witness the eclipse, mainly on account of the overcrowding and large British contingent. By studying the charts published by NASA on the Internet I had managed to sketch the centre line of totality across our Europe road atlas in biro. Fearing the motorway might get congested, we resolved to leave it at the first available exit and head out into the open countryside, trying to get as near as possible to the centre line.

In retrospect, this was the wisest move of the day. Later, Jen heard on the radio that the motorway service stations had been closed because they were full and by about 9 am there were reports of 25 km traffic jams heading North out of Paris and that the French police had closed all motorway access points.

At the early hour we were travelling, the small country roads were pretty clear. The villages were sparse and the country flat and open. Already, people were starting to set up camp in almost every field entrance or flat area large enough to park a car. We therefore decided to claim our territory as soon as possible. Before long, we arrived at a small dot on the map marked "Mazagran". This was a place we had selected several days before as being dead on the centre line. From the map I had presumed it to be a village but it was actually just a roundabout with a single, derelict, building by it. Just off the roundabout there was a grassy area which already contained about half a dozen cars and a couple of camper vans. We decided to join them.

With a couple of hours to kill, my thoughts turned to food. Again, we had been a little short sighted and had very little left in the way of provisions. There had been a huge queue outside the only patisserie we had passed on the way and we had decided not to bother. Leaving Jen reading her book, I set off on foot for the nearest village. The map indicated there were two villages, quite close together, about 3 km away and I hoped that at least one of them would have a shop of some sort.

When I eventually arrived at the first, it did not look promising. The only building which wasn't either a farm or private residence was the Mairie, and that was shut. I was hoping, when I got to the village, I could ask someone for assistance, but there wasn't a living soul in sight. But for the gentle chewing of the cows and the frenetic barking from a dog attached by chain to its kennel, one could have been forgiven for thinking that time had ground to a standstill.

The only person I encountered was a passing French motorist, with a small child as passenger, who stopped and asked me in anxious tones if I new the location of any nearby toilets. I explained as best I could that I was an "etranger" and then watched, sympathetically, as he drove off on a mission which I felt was even more hopeless than my own. At least they had the option of using the bushes though.

It was not quite a kilometre to the next village so I decided to have one more go, but the second was little different from the first. As I walked into the village, the only life in evidence was a trio of geese marching down the centre of the road towards me. The ferocity of geese is legendary and I was greatly relieved that they turned off through a farm gate before the feared encounter.

Again, the only non private residence was the omnipresent Mairie (why, I wondered, should such tiny villages each need their own Mairie) and the nearest thing to a food shop was an ancient sign on a barn advertising "fromages du chevre, direct a la ferme". Goat's cheese wouldn't be my first choice for breakfast and the place looked decidedly dead anyway.

There was just one last corner before the village fizzled out and I had all but given up when I rounded it to discover two men and a woman, standing in the doorway of their garage, surveying the world in that manner so often adopted by continentals with, apparently, nothing better to do. The sight of me, a stranger, wandering down the road was clearly the most significant event of the morning and they made their way down to the gate to greet me.

The first said something which was clearly a question and included the words "ici" and "soleille".

In the best French I could muster, I confirmed I was indeed here for the eclipse and then asked if any of the local villages contained a bakers. Their expressions confirmed my worst fears. I was informed, solemnly, that these were all very small villages with "pas de commerce". A commercial centre I was not expecting, but a village shop would have been nice. My welcoming committee then discussed my problem amongst themselves for a moment before the lady was dispatched to the house. She returned a few moments later with half a torn envelope upon which their spokesman proceeded to sketch out a map.

Apparently I had not quite got half way. The nearest village large enough to boast a baker's shop was a further 5 km down the road. Thanking them for their assistance, I set off back to the car wondering how little old ladies fared in a land where it was possible to have a village several miles from the nearest shop.

The situation was not all bad. As my hopes of food faded, my optimism about the viewing conditions for the main event was increasing. I had long since shed the waterproof I had worn to set out, and gaps were starting to appear in the cloud base. I was even treated to the occasional burst of sunshine.

Back at the Mazagran roundabout, our field was buzzing and there were few places left. One group had set up an astronomical telescope and others were surveying the skies with a variety of appropriate and inappropriate devices ranging from cardboard "lunettes" to welding masks. Looking around the flat landscape I could see other similar groups of cars parked here there and everywhere, as far as the eye could see.

We had brought with us one pair of Mylar eye protectors, purchased in the UK for the princely sum of 99p (I was slightly miffed, therefore, to discover that the French government were handing them out free of charge). This was only a fallback option, though. Before setting out from England I had manufactured an improvised clamp which allowed me to attach my binoculars to my camera tripod. My main viewing strategy was to set up a projection system using this and a piece of white card attached to a document holder appropriated from the office stationery cupboard.

It took a long time to get the system set up correctly. The sunny spells were still few and far between and each one was a race against time to try to get the optics lined up before the sun went in. At first, the image was washed out by the ambient light, but I managed to overcome this by tearing the cardboard back off an A4 notepad, cutting a binocular shaped hole in it, and then taping it over the binoculars so that it threw the screen into shade. Finally I had it. A clear inverted image of the sun about 2-3 inches in diameter. Already the moon had bitten a small chunk out of one edge.

The finished projection system was something of a talking point and several of my fellow observers came to take a look at it. A couple even considered it worth filming.

A Spanish gentleman asked if I would care to take a look through his binoculars to which he had attached a small square of exposed photographic film over each eyepiece. He seemed puzzled at my reluctance.

"Ees safe," he assured me. "I try at home. Ees safe."

I could not help wondering which eye hospital he would now be languishing in if, when he tried it at home, he had discovered "ees no safe".

Another Spaniard from a different party took my side.

"No, no," he said, "ees very dangerous."

"Ees safe. I try at home."

And so they continued to argue, in English for my benefit.

The Frenchman from the neighbouring car was also using binoculars directly. He had cut up a pair of standard lunettes to make a pair of cardboard lens covers for his binoculars. I suppose this could almost be considered safe as he was cutting down the light intensity to acceptable limits before it entered the magnifying lenses. Nevertheless, I declined his persistent efforts to tempt me into trying it and was, no doubt, classified as a paranoid Englishman.

Some people went overboard the other way. I had read a few days previously that one television station's help desk had been inundated with enquiries as to whether lunettes should be obtained for pets. A farmer wanted to know if he should attach lunettes to his herd of cows and numerous people enquired as to whether lunettes were required in order to watch the eclipse on TV. In our field, an elderly French gentleman brought his wife over to have a look at my projection apparatus and she required a fair amount of convincing that it was safe to look at the viewing screen.

As the appointed moment approached, the sun's crescent grew thinner and thinner and the gaps in the clouds got larger and more frequent. By immense good fortune the critical moment coincided with a huge break in the clouds, so large that I didn't miss anything.

The actual time of totality, when it came, was mildly disappointing. I think all the hype over the preceding days had led me to expect something far more spectacular than actually occurred. It got dark, but not nearly so dark as I had expected - certainly no darker, say, than on a clear night with a full moon (I was told later that this eclipse was less dark than some because the moon was at quite a high point in its orbit and only just large enough to obscure the sun). Venus was clearly visible just below and to the left of the sun and moon but the sky was too light to see much else. I never saw Bailey's beads and I never noticed any birds to determine their reactions.

I took one photograph but my tripod was monopolised by the projection system and I wasn't going to waste the brief moments of totality fiddling with photographic equipment. I therefore contented myself with bracing my arm against the car for the quarter to half a second exposure the camera selected. The photo actually came out reasonably well except that the sun appears as a bright disc with a tiny black dot in the centre rather than the black disc with bright halo which I saw with the naked eye. I have no idea why it turned out that way.

I was amused by all the flashbulbs going off around me during totality. I guess this was mainly due to most automatic cameras lacking the facility to disable the flash but I did wonder if any of the photographers were optimistic that the light from their flash could make the half a million mile round trip necessary to illuminate the moon adequately. I don't know how to do the sums but suspect that a flash of sufficient power would have been more than strong enough to fry the lot of us on the spot.

Then, much too soon, it was all over. That part from the accounts I had read did ring true. The two minutes of totality seemed to be over in a few seconds. From my geographical position I assume it lasted just over two minutes. I had intended to use my wristwatch's stop watch facility to time it but in the excitement I forgot to start it.

I did not stay to watch the moon gradually depart from the sun again. Once daylight returned I remembered I was hungry and we set off to try to find food before the roads and cafes became crowded again (in that, too, we failed and it was half past three before we got to a town large enough to contain a restaurant where we could have lunch).

By the end of it all we were tired and hungry and had been wearing the same clothes for nearly two days. Astronomically, it didn't really live up to expectation but I was pleased to have been there. What the spectacle in the heavens lacked was more than made up for by the atmosphere and observing my fellow observers. Above all, at least I won't have to spend the rest of my life wondering what I missed.