There was a solar eclipse due. There would not be a another one for 60 years. That meant that only my four grandchildren had a chance of seeing the next one, and quite possibly Ricky, who is seven, might be the only one of them to remember it. Peter is two, Katie is 18 months, and Alan is just eight months.

Tim decided to have a family party in order to help Ricky remember it. We have a lovely Indian restaurant up the road called the Raj Gaylord, and we all like a butter chicken dish called Murgh Makhani. Ricky loves it despite having a very conservative palate.

I was certainly nervous about looking at the eclipse, with all the warnings about the possibility of doing damage to one’s eyes if one looked directly at the sun. My daughter Julie shared my views.

We hadn’t realised in time that we could order special glasses online to protect our precious eyes. We would have to be careful and look at the sky effect rather than directly at the sun.

It was a beautiful evening with a mostly clear blue sky over Woodside. There was the odd fluffy cloud around. It was also very hot.

Hours passed, and the sky started to fill with clouds. That had not been the forecast. It was almost time to order the Indian takeaway. How many portions did we need? We were fast losing people.

An urgent trip to CUH

Alan had to go to hospital the night before with a croup-type cough. Colm and Elaine had grown anxious listening to him trying to breathe, and he was coughing loudly. They phoned Tim around 2am, and I grabbed a few things and trotted across the lawn in my pyjamas to watch Peter. They weren’t gone 15 minutes when the little boy woke. He was none too happy to see granny coming into the room. Big tears rolled down his face as he told me, ‘I want my Mummy and my Daddy. I don’t want you, Granny.’ Oh dear. A bit of granny counselling allowed me to sleep in the chair while Peter went back to sleep.

We are so lucky to live close to CUH. But the result was that the little family of four would not be coming to Tim’s eclipse party

Alan was discharged in the morning. We were all relieved that the little pet was recovering after treatment by a wonderful A&E team at Cork University Hospital. Colm and Elaine said that the treatment and care he received was amazing, along with the kindness the team showed towards them, his parents.

We are so lucky to live close to CUH. But the result was that the little family of four would not be coming to Tim’s eclipse party.

Then a message came from Julie. Ricky was at a party at his cousins’ house in west Cork, and she had failed to pull him away from the fun. The significance of the eclipse was lost on him. With full cloud cover in place, I was actually glad that Ricky had dug his heels in and stayed at the party. I’m sure he had a ball. He loves his west Cork cousins. They are all around his age, and the fun in their houses is mighty.

Philip and Katie arrived about 6.30pm, and Philip had sourced the all-important glasses.

He also brought along a shepherd’s pie from Aileen. She had gone to play a camogie summer cup final. We popped the shepherd’s pie in the oven and forgot about the Indian delight.

Granny cuddles

We were in and out like yo-yos waiting for a break in the cloud cover. The sky darkened a little and it got calm and cold. We heard the eclipse happened. No party took place. Granny got loads of Katie cuddles. Aileen and Inniscarra won the final, and the glasses were binned.

The best-made plans sometimes don’t come to fruition.