The Eclipse: It's as much fun as Rick Stein jogging

DEREK, THE head waiter at the Treglos Hotel near Padstow, Cornwall, was mystified yesterday morning. "We've never had so many people ordering poached eggs for breakfast," he said. But any psychiatrist could have explained that the covered yolk represented a subconscious yearning for a perfect sighting of this morning's total eclipse. There may even be a clinical term for it - Freud Egg Theory. Or perhaps it was just that lots of people fancied poached eggs.

Either way, there has been a steadily mounting whiff of PEE (Pre-Eclipse Excitement) in the air down here. I am a regular summer visitor, and I haven't had as much fun people-watching in Padstow since I saw Rick Stein, the TV chef, jogging past two middle-aged women from the West Midlands. Unforgettably, one of them actually let out a slight scream.

For once, though, Stein and the formidable prices at his Seafood Restaurant are not the principal topic of conversation in the narrow streets of Padstow. At shortly after 11.00am yesterday, when the sun peered out fiercely from behind grey cloud, I overheard at least six people saying that they wouldn't mind a bit of the same at the same time today.

There is feverish speculation down here about the weather, and the effect that the probable cloud cover will have on this spectacle. But for every person speculating, there is a self-proclaimed expert who barges uninvited into conversations, offering reassurance. "It will still be a spectacular sight," he says."You will see the moon's shadow racing towards you at incredible speed. And don't forget to look out for Baily's Beads." Baily's what? "Baily's Beads. Don't you know? It's when the lunar mountains intrude upon the solar crescent." "Oh, I see," you say, and invent some dry-cleaning to collect.

Whatever eclipsomaniacs tell us, I can't help wondering whether the whole thing will turn out to be a damp squib. A South African friend of mine has seen a total solar eclipse. "It's like, it goes dark, then it gets light again," he says, with defiant inelegance. Very soon, I'll know for myself. But it doesn't really matter; the pre-match build-up has already provided enough entertainment. And I also now have a rather snazzy pair of pounds 1.49 viewing glasses.

Eclipse viewing glasses, incidentally, are the must-have fashion accessory in Cornwall this summer. Last night, at the Treglos bar, I heard a woman boast that hers matched her beach bag. "Never mind that," I heard myself say. "Will they help you see Baily's Beads?"