Solar Eclipse Glasses at the Ready…

Dear Readers, today was the day for the solar eclipse in North America, to be seen by millions of people from Mexico to Canada. Everyone had been watching the weather forecast with trepidation, as the perfectly clear, sunny weather over the weekend was replaced by cloudier conditions here in Toronto. Niagara Falls had declared a state of emergency because they were expecting so many people, but in Toronto, people were, well, copacetic.

We are really here to visit my husband’s 95 year-old Mum, who has dementia and is pretty much bedridden these days, but we were determined to take some time out to see the eclipse. We headed over to Rachel’s Coffeehouse on Yonge Street for a quick bite beforehand. At about 2.20, one of the waitresses popped out with her eclipse glasses, and then popped back in.

“You can see it!” she said.

And so we paid, and there was a break in the clouds, and we looked at the sun, which looked as if it had had a big bite taken out of it. And just as well we did, because after that the clouds rolled in, and that was the last we saw of the sun until now. As I write, the skies are clear and blue again. Shucks.

Still, just because the sun was hidden doesn’t mean that there wasn’t anything to see. We took ourselves over to Mount Pleasant Cemetery and sat on the steps of the Massey Mausoleum (he of tractor fame). I was much amused by the squirrels, who are clearly fed over here, and give everyone the once over to see if they have any peanuts in their pockets.

A blond squirrel

A chestnut-coloured squirrel

I took a few shots to give you all an idea of how the sky darkened over the next hour – in Toronto the moon covered over 99 per cent of the sun at totality, so it wasn’t pitch black, but it did become eerily colder and darker.

About 2.45 p.m.

About 3 p.m.

About 3.10 p.m

3.19 p.m. (totality)

What amazed me was that the birds started to alarm call in the trees.

And some of them were singing, almost as if they couldn’t decide whether it was time for the last song of the evening or the dawn chorus.

And then the light came back up, and things went back to some sort of normal. A young woman who was expecting it to go completely dark was somewhat underwhelmed, but then I do sometimes think that many people have lost their capacity for wonder. For 4 minutes, the moon and the sun were poised so perfectly against one another that the light that powers everything on earth was blocked out, and I for one was delighted to have been here in Toronto to see it.

And on the way home through the cemetery, we spotted this horse head-shaped tree trunk. I’m seeing faces everywhere at the moment – I know that pareidolia is the word for seeing human faces in inanimate objects, but I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent for heads and faces in general.

Plus it appears that people have been racing cycles through the cemetery. Um, no, people.

And finally, how about this squirrel in a tree? This one is black, as you can see – Toronto has a high number of grey squirrels (yes, the same ones that I have at home) but these are coloured black, and very fine they look too.

And if you’re wondering when the next solar eclipse will be visible in the UK, there’s one on 12th August 2026 which will be 90 percent total, so not quite as impressive as this one, but still worth a look (through your eclipse glasses of course!)