Eclipse, Silenced Bongs, Brexit Positions, and Surrogacy Book

Today people looked up to see momentous events. In the US, it was a total eclipse of the sun than ran from west to east across the whole country. Millions traveled to see the phenomenon.

In the UK, hundreds travelled to London, to look up at a clock and listen to the last chimes of Big Ben as the tower falls silent for four years.

President Trump has now disbanded his climate change advisory committee. The committee is supposed to give its assessment every four years and it has submitted the Climate Science Special Report, a key part for the assessment, to President Trump for his review. Despite the administration's skepticism  about the human impact of climate change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a statement that “this action does not impact the completion of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which remains a key priority.”

By the end of the day, the UK Government issued two new position papers. The first was Confidentiality and Access to Papers. It appears to reflect the governments concern that information it has shared with the EU to date could be released upon Brexit and asks - please could we agree to keep our secrets secret afterwards?

The second is the Continuity in the Availability of Goods for the EU and the UK. Boiled down, this basically says - we have a good and very important trading relationship. Could we please agree to apply the past rules to products and services initiated before Brexit and could we please look forward to having practically the same benefits after we leave?

I met up with Author Manuela O'Reilly, author of the most recent book published under Milton Contact Ltd, called 'Whose Tummy was I in?' It is a board book, beautifully illustrated by the author. The story is about a fox couple who cannot have their own children and are looking for a mother who could help. Born out of the author's own experience of only being able to have children through surrogacy, the story aims to help the young children of other surrogate families understand how they came into the world, through the help of another mother. We had the official handover of the archival copies for registration.

In the afternoon, produced a Hall End picture demonstrating how an eclipse really works.