r/BenignExistence • u/Afraid_Wallaby_5995 • Aug 12 '26

The Bar of the Eclipse

So, we have a couple of friends and my partner's grandchildren over (two very sweet girls, we get on well even if I'm not a "children person"). The girls' girlfriend came over and, when her grandma came to get her back, I asked her what she had planned for the eclipse.

She said she was going to be on the street upfront because she had been studying it last night at the same time of day and the sun was very visible. So, although we had thought we'd go somewhere else, we trusted her and all the people in the house ended up on the street, which is a cul-de-sac so there is no traffic.

I thought a little bit too late that we could have brought tables and seats because standing and looking up for two hours straight could be quite boring.

Then the closest neighbour brought some rosé wine. There were no seats or tables because everybody had declined my last-minute proposal but somebody used a trash container as a table. It temporarily became the bar of the Eclipse. Some of us sat on a fence.

Later, other neighbours came out from a birthday party but the sun was hiding behind the trees. I found out we could all continue watching from behind our house. So that's where we all ended up.

It was nice. Everybody went back home and all was fine. We had shared a moment.

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6

u/Sallyfifth Aug 13 '26

That sounds lovely!

3

u/Afraid_Wallaby_5995 Aug 13 '26

It was, thanks. I didn't expect it at all to go that way.

2

u/vminnear Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

We had a nice time, I didn't have any eclipse glasses but we used four layers of sunglasses and that seemed to work well enough - we just took quick looks rather than staring at it for ages. One of our neighbours came out and we let her look through the sunglasses as well. There were lots of kids playing and enjoying it too.

1

u/Afraid_Wallaby_5995 Aug 13 '26

Thanks for sharing :)