The Roque de Los Muchachos is a spectacular place to watch the sunset. For one thing, you’re usually above the clouds (which is one reason the observatory is there.) In fact, sometimes the clouds are so much lower than the Roque that the sun sets well below you. This means that your shadow on a wall is taller than you, and the shadows of your legs go on forever….
I seem to be winning. The site is up, and looking fairly pretty. I’ve sorted out all the pages (the stuff on the fixed menus at the top) and imported all the posts from sheilacrosby.blogspot.com and starisland.co.uk, although the photos stayed behind. I’ve managed to find a plugin to help me move all those photos, and I’m steadily working my way through, importing photos and tweaking. I’ve already got most…
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is negotiating with the IAC to site more Cherenkov telescopes on La Palma. It’s not guarenteed that they’ll come here, but it’s highly likely. What is certain is that they’re going to build a prototype here. So what’s a Cherenkov telescope? The oversimplification is that it’s a telescope to look at gamma rays instead of visible light. For more detail, see this article on…
I love Christina’s shop. She started off in the local flea market, selling fancy knitting yarn in the most wonderful colours. I always wanted to buy the lot and spend the next year knitting. Now she has a shop on the Calle Real, still selling the yarn, but also finished knitware and costume jewelry which she makes herself out of local lava and coral, with silver or gold-plated silver…
Tuesday was great too. I took the journalist, Tim Johnson, into Santa Cruz, where he bought a T shirt. Then we went to Las Nieves and thence to San Andres (via the usual viewpoints) to stuff ourselves at Restaurante San Andres. I love their fishballs! After that we did a short hike in Los Tilos, and went round the north along the Mimbres road to Hoya Grande, and up…
On Monday and Tuesday I showed a journalist around for the Tourist Board. On Monday night we went stargazing with Astrolapalma. I loved it. Agustín was very enthusiastic, and now I understand why people enjoy my enthusiasm so much. We started off just after sunset, and we had a lovely view of the old moon in the arms of the new. That’s the poetic name for when you can see…