Hurray, the gales have stopped. In fact there was hardly any wind at all today. As soon as I woke up I started looking forward to a peaceful day. Ha! It got off to a nice enough start. I met an old friend, Jo, in town. She used to work at the observatory, but I hadn’t seen her since she left, over five years ago. So we chatted, and drank…
Some people reckon that the Canaries have the best climate in the world, but right now, it’s blowing a gale out there. Yesterday was bad, and today is worse – we’ve had gusts up to force ten. The schools in Mazo, the Breñas and Santa Cruz were all shut this morning (my son was delighted, of course). The dentist didn’t open either. Since the gale is from the west, the…
It’s windy today, even more than yesterday. In fact my son’s school is going to be shut tomorrow, due to the weather alert. My usual weather site says the wind’s gusting up to 57 km/h, which would be 7 on the Beaufort scale. I’d say those gusts are pretty constant, because every time I go outside, I feel I have to be careful. And theoretically, tomorrow should be worse. Mind…
The flea market in Argual, just outside Los Llanos, takes place every Sunday from about 10 am to about 2 pm. It’s smaller than the monthly market in Santa Cruz, but it’s a much nicer situation. I think it’s been a market square for a very long time. At any rate, it’s surrounded by beautiful old buildings and has trees growing in the middle (which must be really nice on…
Lately it seems to have been all work and no play (except for writing just a little about my hamster secret agent every day). I’m behind with everything, and more stuff to do arrives faster than I deal with the old lot. So I felt it was urgent to recharge my batteries. I talked Helen and Theresa into visiting both flea markets today: the monthly one in Santa Cruz, and…
Most of the telescopes at the observatory here look spectacular even from the outside. SuperWASP looks like a big garden shed. It’s the white thing at bottom left. Even when it opens up, it still doesn’t look like a professional telescope. To me, it looks more like a small missile launcher. The equipment isn’t that spectacular either. As modern telescopes go, it was built for peanuts. It has eight cameras,…