Life has been happening too fast to blog about. It’s nearly all good things but I’ve struggled to keep up. For example, on Wednesday I abandoned a Nobel Prize winner in a broken down car. Yes really. The Canarian Astrophysics Institute hosted a big partical physics conference on the island, all about the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which is an instrument on the ISS. (It measures antimatter in cosmic rays, with…
Photos of the week: La Verdad
Santa Cruz de La Palma used to have a shipyard. One of the largest ships they built was La Verdad, 485 tons displacement, which was wrecked on a reef south of Bermuda shortly after a hurricane in 1899. Luckily the water was shallow and the crew, cargo and bell were saved, although the first mate apparently had a terrible job to persuade the captain to leave. Thomas Cox, a retired…
Photo of the week: Jade vine flower
Yesterday I saw a jade vine in flower for the first time in my life. As you can see, it’s not really jade coloured, much less emerald (the other name for the plant) but it is very pretty. After a bit of googling I discovered that it’s in the pea family, and the Latin name is Strongylodon macrobotrys and it comes from the Phillipines.
Swaledale.
I spent the week before Easter visiting family in Swaledale. I’d forgotten how beautiful it is. The town itself is really nice, full of old buildings and charm. It also has a castle, and I ate some memorable fish and chips under the castle wall with a view of the river. Like most castles, it’s built on higher ground, so you get a great view from the Castle Walk –…
Photography: spring flowers
These are photos I took myself on a walk with my friend Petra. Proteas are one of the flowers grown for export here.
Off to England
Tomorrow morning I’m going to England for a week, to see family. The outward journey is going to be a pain: La Palma to Gran Canaria to Tenerife South to Manchester, followed by a couple of hours in a car. On Wednesday I’m going to spend most of the day driving from one set of relatives to another. On Friday afternoon I’ll drive to Gatwick and spend the night in…