Who knew a meteor was heading our way

“It’s a mystery,” said my husband, as we tore around the house last Sunday morning, trying to find the cause of the unexpected boom-crash-bang on the roof, and the ear-splitting, growling rumble of thunder (which wasn’t thunder) that followed.

As one does, I’d been minding my business on the sunny stoep, considering breakfast while catching up on messages.

Initially, when I heard the “explosion”, my brain interpreted it as a golf ball hitting the roof, because that happens sometimes.

But this “golf ball” was a larger-than-life version of itself, and its landing scared the cat.

It then began to “roll” down the roof, but sounded more like a reticulated truck than a badly-failed hole-in-one. I checked the roof — and nothing was there.

While tearing around the property, trying to inject logic and reason into the experience, I realised we were in the middle of An Event and that trying to make sense of it was pointless.

A few hundred years ago, the mystery might have remained so, bar a couple of eyewitness accounts, whether believed or dismissed; but social media is a wondrous thing — within minutes, we understood that it wasn’t our house collapsing, or a golfer’s off day.

I hadn’t expected a meteor to hurtle above my village on a Sunday morning, and I had no idea it made such a racket.

We looked around for rock fragments, but only a lady in Kirkwood seemed lucky enough to find some bits and pieces in her garden.

It was exciting to hear, though, that a whale-watching boat reportedly saw a hissing blue plop and light falling into the ocean about 200m away; proof of something far more wondrous than golf balls, to be sure.

Watching our own, and everybody else’s, reaction to the intrusion from space was a hoot — we really don’t get out much, intergalactically-wise, and will likely be talking about this for weeks.

The funny thing is that I had a strange sense of anticipation the day before, while browsing a surf shop.

I spotted a series of beautiful photographs of the ocean in St Francis Bay and surrounds, and felt mesmerised by the sound and movement in otherwise still art.

I mentioned this to my dad, who had joined us while shopping, and said: “Something big seems to be brewing at the moment, all around us, and who knows what it is? I can’t begin to guess — and the feeling I have is that we need to just stand on the shore, watching the waves ebb and flow, accepting there are some things beyond our control, which just require waiting and watching.”

Who knew?

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