Hurrah! After seventeen years on the island, I finally got to the summit of the volcano Teneguia. It’s only 400 m above sea-level, and I didn’t walk all that far. But I’m horribly unfit and it’s a rough path. And besides, I have a horrible tendency to leave everything to some mythical day in the future when I won’t be so busy. So I’m proud of myself for getting up…
The MAGIC telescope
This is the MAGIC telescope (Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov Telescope). It’s perhaps the most exotic telescope at the observatory at the Roque de los Muchachos. It’s not an optical telescope. Instead of observing visible light, it’s looking for gamma rays. Visible light is made up of different wavelengths, which give the different colours from red to violet. Wavelengths which are just a bit too short to see form ultra-violet…
Los Sauces Sardine Postponed
Los Sauces always hold their Sardine’s Funeral a week or two after Santa Cruz. It was supposed to happen on Saturday, but we had an orange weather alert. The rain poured and the wind gusted, and it was obvious that nobody was going out if they could help it. In one way it’s a good thing – the reservoirs were very low after such a dry winter. It’s finally stopped…
A Carnivorous Shopping Trolley
It’s been pouring with rain for days. Eventually I had to go out and get shopping regardless. I went to the supermarket at San Antonio, and I had to park on the steep slope beside the building. It wasn’t raining when I went in, but as I came out, it was pouring with big gusts of wind . I didn’t want to sit in the car and wait, because I…
Giant Lizards
Yesterday I clean forgot that in December last year they found out that the giant Canarian lizard, Gallotia auaritae, isn’t extinct after all. José Antonio Mateo, a reptile expert, only found the one, but he believes there must be a colony within a kilometre of the one he found. In this case, “giant” means 30 cm (one foot) long. Extinct specimens are larger. Twenty-five years ago, they thought Gallotia…
Today we have an orange weather alert, and it’s poured pretty much non-stop. So a number of things I’d planned have been postponed. But I did meet Helen, Theresa and Norma in town for a coffee, and then Helen helped mecollect my cat Inky from the vet – she went in yesterday to have her teeth cleaned (I wish she’d learn to use a toothbrush like the rest of the…