My Busy Week

Ravens on the roof of my car outside Gran Telescopio Canarias, -Roque de Los Muchacos, Garafia
January 5, 2017

I’m not sure what I was thinking of when I agreed to work from Monday to Friday this week. I let myself slip way behind with paperwork and now I have to catch up. Besides, I’m self employed and the new year means setting up new spreadsheets. It’s not as if any of these jobs are particularly long or difficult, just that there’s a lot of them. Also my cleaner…

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The ravens are back

October 5, 2016

I saw very little of the ravens over the summer. I think they were so many tourists with tasty food that they didn’t need me, thank you so very much. Now that it’s getting colder there are fewer ham sandwiches and almond biscuits to be had. Yesterday, my bag of cat food was back in demand. First they ate from my hands, as usual, and flew off. Then one came…

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Bikers

Today’s visit to Gran Telescopio Canarias was a bit different. Most of the group were bikers from Gran Canaria. It made for a good photo op as they left.

September 9, 2016
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Starmus 2016

Sir Roger Penrose, Elizabeth Blackburn, Rafael Rebolo, Russell Schweickart, Robert Kirshner, Joseph Stiglitz, Garik Israelian, Romano Corradi standing, (director of GTC), Eugene Kaspersky in the GTC dome, La Palma
July 1, 2016

Starmus is a big festival of science and art in Tenerife, with many famous speakers like Stephen Hawking, Brian May and Neil de Grasse Tyson. On Thursday morning I met the VIP visitors from Starmus at the airport. The group included Nobel Prize winners and an astronaut! That’s when I found out that the organisers thought I was going to stay the night at the observatory. I told them two…

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Time for a rest

I’ve been rather overdoing it, just for a change. On Sunday afternoon I took delivery of a hire car so I could meet an English travel agent at the airport on Sunday evening. She was really nice, and interested in organising a spring nature holiday for UK clients. I had a very long day with her on Monday, from 9 am to 8:20 pm. We went to Astrolapalmna (not planned,…

March 18, 2016
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Fog

Canary pine trees looking atmospheric in the mist , La Palma , Canary Islands
January 5, 2016

Today I had two groups at the observatory, which meant that I had to get up at 6:30 am (ugh!) to leave home at 8 am. When I arrived at the top of the mountain at 9:10 am, it was 6 ºC and mizzling. As I said to the tourists, “Welcome to the Canary Islands, land of eternal spring.” Of course it’s January, and the observatory is at 2,400 m,…

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