Gecko in the Garden

Be welcome to another account of life in OPPOSITE WORLD, where Autumn is Spring, night is day and taps and locks respectively loosen and open the wrong way, blast-it-all! I am become nocturnal, waking a few hours before the long moonless shifts begin, and returning to bed before the sun is up. The lightproof shutters in my room go a long way towards fooling my body into sleep, where at least I can dream of daylight (that, and cannons-fired; “arcade vampires” in underground, watery caverns; rooftop journeys ‘tween London Town and Leicester, and Big Cats loose in my house, apparently!)

I’ve a somewhat gloomy countenance this week, for the Science has given way to cloud overhead, and the rise in humidity has sent the creepy-crawly count through the roof! I don’t know that you remember the Animal Ark series of Children’s books, with their quaint, alliterative titles, but here my mind dwells querulously on such imaginings as Spider in the Sink and Hornet in the (telescope) Hut… I jest only to hide my (very real, if irrational) fear of such beasties.

Geckos now, may be said to creep and to crawl, but are a whole different kettle of fish! I have such an affinity for the little dears, being I think the most draconic and endearing of reptiles alive today. One of the characters in my book is a gecko in fact, and her likeness is painted on the front of my ukulele. Of themselves by all accounts, they are such charming creatures, and a night or so ago, upon finishing the shift and making for bed, I learned a shocking lesson about them. I spotted something white writhing on the ground like a fish out of water, and immediately jumped to the worst conclusion – that this was some hellishly large and poisonous invertebrate – when in actuality a gecko had been spooked into dropping its tail. This is a remarkable defence mechanism of theirs, and all my dread-turned-horrified-concern dissolved upon hearing that they are then able to grow a new tail. This I was assured of before I could peaceably go to sleep!

One wonder (if indeed it can be called so) I’ve witnessed since these long shifts under cover of cloud began, is that of absolute darkness – the like of which can only be "seen" in the strict absence of light pollution and starlight. It is akin to blindness, and really quite disconcerting, disturbed yesternight by lightning; this morning (in the wee hours) by the storm-induced bushfire on the horizon! I can only liken this alarming sight to the scene from The Two Towers in which the hobbits have their first glimpse of far-off Mordor.

Here follows a few things I find myself missing...

             

Grass You may laugh, but last week we drove into Windhoek to buy some groceries, and I was briefly at liberty to explore a little hotel courtyard, where I was so delighted by the sight of grass I immediately had to sit myself thereupon and feel the blades between my eager fingers!

Rain There was lightning to the East even as I wrote this item, followed by a downpour-of-sorts, but this fortnight past has elsewise been dry as a bone, and the rain here doesn’t smell half so good as it does back home. 

The cats I shouldn’t wonder you think this unfeeling, when I’ve not confessed first to missing my family and friends (who of course I do!), but I’m dealing more in specifics here, and I long for a glimpse of Gump’s wonderfully expressive face; the sound of her plaintive meow, and Cully’s soft purring response to my goodnight scratch-under-the-chin. Yes – even Monty’s sandpaper tongue!

Carpet It gets sillier I know, but there’s something very clinical and uncomfortable about floor-to-floor tiles!

Gotta Catch 'em All

It is here in the Khomas highlands of Namibia – on the site of the High Energy Stereoscopic System – that my adventure begins. The shifters’ residence building was a welcome sight indeed after my 27 hour-long journey, made sweeter still by the discovery of an acoustic guitar in the sitting room, and my learning that the nest above my bedroom door is in fact home to a swallow, and not some hostile insect intent upon bleeding me dry. The abrupt change in season and altitude have had no truly adverse effects as yet, though I noticed those extra 1600 metres when I took a short bike ride on Monday, and had the winds knocked out of me. Meal times are largely a carnivorous affair (Gemsbok barbecue, anyone? My first taste of game, I rather think!) and taken outside, with the Gamsberg (Namibia’s table mountain) in sight upon the horizon and the tweeting of myriad little birds on the air.

Of course my situation this month is by no means perfect. I am the only individual on site lacking a Y chromosome, the dry air is wreaking havoc on my skin, and a good 50% of the flora and fauna pose some threat or other if I get too close, but you know, I think it’s worth it just to see the Milky Way painted gloriously across the Southern night sky of an evening, or watch the telescopes slowly parking out in unison before a shift; to witness finally the rising of the Magellanic Clouds (Big Fuzz and Little Fuzz as I've come to name them) or play spot-the-γ in the Control Room as events flash onto the monitor in real time. It’s all really quite magical.

So today I met a singing; dancing warthog who assured me in a rich baritone (in no uncertain terms) that I should adopt a problem-free philosophy from now on.

Okay, that’s not altogether true. Would that it were! I did see a warthog at the side of the road, seemingly fully occupied with grazing for it paid us little heed. I’ve seen such animal life here I hardly know where to begin! Birds of prey, Oryxes and Ostriches, Snakes and Springbok – and baboons in abundance! Nearby waterholes make such sightings frequent, and this will tide me over ‘till the safari next month.

In case you’re wondering, the title of this post alludes at once to the obvious plight of the gamma-ray astronomer, and my completing the set of naked-eye-planets-viewed-through-a-telescope at long last – with Jupiter rising even before the Witching Hour and the use of a sturdy little optical reflector living on site, I was treated to a wondrous view of the great gas giant that has eluded me for so long! Its zones and belts, and four of its satellites were also visible, and Sky View Café assures me these were Io, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. Incidentally, Pokémon with planets rather than pocket monsters would I think be a far easier state of affairs, given there are only eight of them (sorry Pluto dearest – your ship has sailed).

So without further ado, a gamma-ray haiku, entitled Monitor Number Five:

Gamma rays, these days

Are little fishes swimming

In Cosmic-ray pools

Muons are ripples

On the detector surface

From Cosmic-ray rain

The fishes converge

On a night-sky point: Here be

Cosmic-ray dragons

Still alive and there's Science to do!