Our guests for dinner - on the eclipse!

Hi - well I guess I ought to have taken into consideration that there was a total eclipse today - although we in these latitudes couldn't see it - so  was it a question of  'out of sight, out of mind'  which, as an astrologer, makes me blush.    However yes it did hit home for us.   I picked up an email from our two main guests who were coming to dinner with us for the first time,and they were ill and  not well enough to come and we have, as yet to meet the wife.   We were disappointed and D was already  'prepping'  - he's the chef in the Parker household.   At first we thought of cutting back on two portions - we were to be six including ourselves;  but then  that would have been rather messy and complicated.    So - ask two close friends, but at totally short notice?   I took the line 'I wonder if you can help us out?' and explained the reason, of course they were delighted even although our friend Michael Hope had been playing piano for fully seven hours earlier in the day and his wife Wendy was at it writing her children's books.   Well, we had a great evening and then  another of our guests,who is a very experienced astrologer  mentioned the Eclipse.   'How has it affected you?' she asked. I just smiled and chickened out! Fortunately, as conversation was more than lively we didn't get into anything seriously technical about possible long term effects!   I hope we can catch up with our two unwell guests sometime. . . Cheers Julia!