We just can’t help it. When we see someone looking up, we wonder what they’re looking at. Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a crick in the neck? This week, herself was staring skywards, late in the evening. Then I heard her saying we should head out into the moor. I thought she was wondering if she could see anything like Hayley. Hayley? What is she on about? Hayley Cropper is no longer in Coronation Street. Roy Cropper is a widower.
It turns out she was actually talking about Halley’s Comet. Her thick Plasterfield accent confused me. Halley won’t be back until 2061, round about the time of indyref2 at the rate we’re going, but another comet is somewhere over the Minch as we speak. It’s called NEOWISE C/2020 F3. Why? There is a space telescope up there called a WISE, which is a Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer. That’s the WISE bit.
Ten years ago it started to look for comets, known as Near Earth Objects or NEO. A few months ago the telescope found a new comet called C/2020 F3. No, I don’t know what the F3 stands for and I am not sure I care. I have only one life and only 850 words. You look it up. The point is that it is swooping over the UK this week and should be close, in comet terms, tomorrow evening. It will only be 64 million miles away. It’s a bit far for a tank of unleaded but take the chance because it is not expected to be back for 6,800 years. Surely indyref2 will be done by then.
More Sassenachs may also be about to descend on us from the skies. As yon virus thing is still on the go, I’m a Celebrity… may be in Scotland this year and not the Australian jungle.
If you are a queasy type or are scoffing lunch, even a slice of black pudding or a slab of duff, finish it now before you read the next bit. These witchetty grubs, like whopping, white, wriggling, wrinkly maggots are what Ant and Dec love to see going down the throats of highly-paid quivering unfortunates in these so-called bushtucker trials. What could we make them force down the hatch? Uncooked crabs? Black pudding?
What about earthworms? Plenty in the rich soil of Little Bernera. I ate a worm once for a promise of a Lucky Bag and some Liquorice Allsorts. It was when I was 10 and I remember suffering a wretched earache the following day. When my father teased that it was the worm trying to get out, sheer panic seized me. I began banging my head against the byre wall to dislodge Willie Worm. Crash, wallop. I’ve not been right since. Now, it’s all about custard. Throughout lockdown, Mrs X and I discovered a passion that was deep down and almost forgotten… for the yellow stuff.
Much of what we bought – from cakes, biscuits, bananas and other exotic fruit – we would place them on the kitchen table, look at each other and come out in unison with the well-worn phrase of cash-strapped mothers in the 1960s – “That would be nice with custard”.
And it dashed well was. We gobbled gallons of the stuff since Boris locked us down. Custard got us through lockdown and I would go into that Australian jungle if I had a few tins of Bird’s Custard.
Witchetty is not a bug. It’s just the name of a bush that these grubs in Australia nibble the roots of. And the grubs themselves are not actually that exotic, being just an Aussie name for moth larvae as found in the Australian jungle and, judging by the number of white stinky balls I found in our wardrobe years ago, the west side of Lewis too. With rumours that former Commons speaker John Bercow could be a campmate, he may be one I would love to see have his fill of them. Let’s see you bring that lot to order.
I have been really enthused by the arrival of comet NEOWISE. When I heard about it coming, I went out and bought my own space telescope so I could scan the heavens. It is not that good, though and I have only seen a couple of things. Now the supplier wants me to give feedback on my new purchase and to rate it out of five. Honesty is the best policy. I shall tell them I am disappointed. Two stars.