2010 ST3 What's four million miles between friends?

Sometime this month an asteroid the size of a city block named 2010 ST3 will fortunately avoid hitting Earth, missing by a mere six and a half million kilometres which is quite a close shave in astronomical terms. Interestingly, it is the first such close encounter to be detected in advance by a program designed specifically for the purpose. You can read about it here.

Yesterday along with Gwenda I enjoyed the afternoon spent at the Minlaton Agricultural Show - super weather except for half an hour of dark cloud racing across from the west, but this passed with only a light release of rain. We knew we were in the country because between us we kept meeting others we knew, from at least four towns. Our friend Barbara cleaned up most of the awards in the flower-arranging displays. (I learn that she has done so often in the past as well.)

Also we felt like truants because our monthly concert, also in Minlaton, had been cancelled - first time ever - through the medically-related unavailability of our pianist, then the reserve pianist, then the next reserve pianist. The OTHER reserve pianist had been unavailable (post-op recuperating) from the start, so had not been approached. We are fortunate to have the depth of musical talent to draw upon, but in this case it was insufficient, piano-wise. Naturally, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact of the group's average age being 70+. Right, let's be clear about THAT.