Morning, Surbiton. Two things worth planning around this week, and they land on consecutive days: tomorrow evening the sky goes strange, and Thursday carries an official amber warning for extreme heat. Both below, with times. Also: England with the shield, photographed, and the K2 is back.
The eclipse: 6.17pm, not 7.02pm
Tomorrow, Wednesday 12 August, we get the deepest solar eclipse over Britain since 1999. From here roughly nine tenths of the Sun goes behind the Moon.
It starts at 6.17pm. Maximum is about 7.12pm. It finishes at 8.06pm. Nearly two hours, start to finish.
The catch is how low it will be. At maximum the Sun sits only about nine or ten degrees above the horizon, and by the end it is a degree or two up, minutes before sunset. You need an open view to the west, or a little north of west. From most gardens round here, a row of houses or a line of trees will simply take it away.
Worth clearing up before you set an alarm. Our local paper reported this morning that the eclipse “will pass over the UK sometime between 7.02pm and 7.16pm” and that the scene “will last for around two minutes.” Read that as the window in which the peak crosses the country, not as the eclipse's start and finish — here it runs for the best part of two hours, and the peak in London is about 7.12pm. And the two minutes describes totality, which does not happen here: that path crosses western Iceland and northern Spain, well past us. Turn up at 7.02pm for two minutes of darkness and you will have missed forty-five minutes of it and be waiting for something that is not coming.
Do not look at it. Not with sunglasses, not through a phone, not squinting because ninety per cent is covered — the tenth that is left will still damage your eyes. Proper eclipse glasses marked ISO 12312-2, or the pinhole trick: make a small hole in a bit of card and let it throw an image of the Sun onto a second bit of card, with the Sun behind you.
The forecast for tomorrow evening is clear. If you know a spot around here with a genuinely open western horizon, reply and tell me — I will put the good ones in tomorrow's issue while there is still time to use them.
Times for London, checked this morning against the Royal Observatory Greenwich and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, which agree to within a minute.
Amber heat warning for Thursday
The Met Office has an amber warning for extreme heat covering Greater London and Surrey, running 8am until just before 11pm on Thursday 13 August. Amber is the middle of the Met Office's three levels, above yellow.
Yesterday I got this wrong and it is worth saying so. I told you Wednesday was the day to plan for, at 31 degrees. Both parts have moved. Wednesday is now forecast somewhere around 32 to 34, and Thursday is the serious one at 34 to 36 — the two forecast models I check disagree by about a degree and a half, which is why I am giving you a range rather than a number. Thursday is also the day with the official warning attached.
Practical version: the free Active for All sports day at Chessington that I recommended yesterday is tomorrow, 11am to 3pm, and it is outdoors. That is four hours in the low thirties, in the hottest part of the day. It is a good event and I am not telling you to skip it — but take water, take hats, and treat the shade as part of the plan rather than a bonus. Thursday, if you can move the strenuous thing to early morning or late evening, move it.
And here they are
Yesterday I told you England had won the MacRobertson Shield on Alexandra Drive and said that if a photograph turned up, I would run it. One did, within a few hours.
The England team with the MacRobertson Shield at Surbiton Croquet Club on Sunday evening. Photograph by Adrian Coles, who took it and sent it over for you.
Adrian is the club's honorary secretary and he sent five, all taken by him: the team, the presentation, the closing ceremony, and the Mayor of Kingston, who came down for it. Yesterday I told you the caveat on that story was that I only had the club's word for it. The photographs are their own evidence — England kit, the shield, the Mayor in his chain on the grass — and Adrian has since pointed me at an independent report of the result as well.
A world team championship, decided on a lawn between houses in Surbiton, and the Mayor stood on the grass for the closing ceremony. Worth a photograph.
The K2 is back, and I owe you a correction
Yesterday the K2 was skipping every stop between The Roystons and Berrylands station, TfL would not say for how long, and I went to the permit register and guessed it would clear by the end of the day. It did — TfL has it back on a Good Service this morning with nothing logged against it.
It cleared earlier than I said, too. Alison rode the K2 through the Surbiton Hill Park stops at about half past three yesterday afternoon and found them all being served, normally, which she noted was a considerable relief in that heat.
Now the correction. I told you there was one live permit on Raeburn Avenue. There were two. I found BT's, which ran Sunday to Monday and has finished. I missed the council's own — two-way signals on Raeburn Avenue, running until Friday the 14th — because of the way I filter the register: anything starting on the same day I run the check falls through the gap. That is fixed. So the buses are back, but if you drive Raeburn Avenue there are still lights on it until Friday.
Which rather makes the point I keep making. The register is better than nothing and it is still not the road. You are.
Buses: all clear. K1, K2, K3, K4, 71, 281, 406, 418, 465 and the S3 all on a Good Service, nothing logged against any of them.
New today — Ewell Road. Thames Water have multi-way signals on it today and tomorrow. On the same road, the council's works run to Friday the 14th, and the cycle scheme grinds on underneath all of it.
Also new — the A3 at Tolworth. Lane restrictions northbound on Tolworth Rise North at Fairmead for BT, from this morning until Thursday afternoon.
Until Friday the 14th. Raeburn Avenue (two-way signals, above), Manor Way, and Tolworth Road. Kingston Road has Thames Water signals until Thursday. Dysart Avenue finishes today. Elmbridge Avenue runs to the 18th.
Towards Chessington. Three sets of lights on the A243: Chalky Lane (emergency Thames Water, to Friday), Bridge Road (to Thursday), and Fairoak Lane (to the 15th). If you are heading that way for the sports day tomorrow, add ten minutes.
Hook Road — two official answers. Yesterday I gave you 18 October from TfL's road feed. The permit register says the same UK Power Networks job ends 15 September. I cannot reconcile them, so treat it as somewhere between mid-September and mid-October and do not plan a route around either date.
One last 281 note, then I will leave it. Tim points out that TfL's own route map page for the 281 still shows the old alignment. So the buses are right, the live data was wrong, and the map has not caught up with either. Thank you, Tim.
Still to come this week
Tonight. The free walk-and-talk group for men, Surbiton station, Glenbuck Road entrance, 6.30pm. No booking, just turn up.
Tomorrow. Active for All at Chessington Sports Centre, 11am to 3pm, free (see the heat note above). Wheels for All inclusive family cycling at the Weir Archer centre, 1pm to 3pm, free. Family bowls at King George Field, noon to 4pm, four pounds. Then the eclipse in the evening.
Thursday. The new jam night at the Surbiton Flyer, 8.30pm to 11.30pm — which on the hottest day of the year is an argument for being somewhere with a roof and a cold drink.
Saturday. Farmers' Market on Maple Road, 9am to 1pm. And the railway: Effingham Junction is closed all weekend, so Waterloo to Guildford via Cobham trains terminate at Hampton Court, with buses between Surbiton and Guildford.
⛅ Weather. Today is the mild one: clear, dry, about 26°C, dropping into the high teens tonight. Then it climbs hard — 32 to 34°C tomorrow, clear skies for the eclipse, and 34 to 36°C on Thursday under the amber warning.
Friday eases back to somewhere between 27 and 30, and Thursday night stays above twenty, which is the bit people underestimate — it is the night you cannot cool down in that does the damage.
Three of you wrote in yesterday within hours of the issue landing: one to say where the K2 actually was, one about the 281 map, one with the photographs. That is the whole method, and none of it is mine.
Tomorrow: where to stand for the eclipse, if you send me your spots. Reply and they go in.
Have a good Tuesday,
Mike
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