Yesterday I had my first private customers. I got an email: “Our friend went on a cruise, and you were the guide for her excursion on La Palma. She says you’re great. We’re coming on Nov 10th, please can you tell us which excursion you’ll be doing because we want to be on it.” Obviously this did my ego no harm at all, but I can’t control which bus I…
Better
I went back to the dentist yesterday. Much better! I now have a temporary filling that hopefully won’t need to come out. If all goes well, the dentist will put a permanent cover on it in three weeks. Meanwhile, it’s sensitive to hot and cold, but doesn’t hurt otherwise. The children’s anthology is coming on nicely, too. I’ve started writing the last story in English, nine of the stories have…
Monday’s eclipse seen from a plane
This was photographed from a plane flying at 13,300 m going 800 km/h, 960 km southeast of Bermuda. In order to get the eclipse to one side of the plane, they flew across the path of totality, rather than along it. This required split-second timing, since the shadow on the moon moves across the Earth’s surface at 12,800 km/h. The photographer, Ben Cooper, isn’t sure whether this is totality…
Ship building in Santa Cruz de La Palma
Santa Cruz used to be the third biggest port in the Spanish empire, after Cadiz and Antwerp. So perhaps it’s not surprising that it also Santa Cruz used to be the third biggest port in the Spanish empire, after Cadiz and Antwerp. So perhaps it’s not surprising that it also used to be quite a big shipyard. Some 90 ships were built there between 1809 and 1948. In fact I…
Partial Solar Eclipse on Sunday
On November 3rd 2013 there will be a partial solar eclipse. Well, it’s a total eclipse in some places and an annual eclipse in others, ubt fromteh Canary Islands we get a partial eclipse. 40% of the sun will be covered by the moon at 12:15 pm. From the UK there won’t be anything to see. Do NOT look directly at the sun. You might go blind. There are two…
Ouch!
My tooth broke on Friday night. To begin with, I thought it was a piece of bone in the corned beef, but next morning I found that a quarter of my back molar had vanish, and the bit of “bone” had been about that size and shape so… Well it wasn’t too bad living with it, but of course it needed attention. So I got an emergency appointment at the…