Thursday was my birthday. I’ve made 59 trips around the sun now. I celebrates with a walk from Cumbrecita because I hadn’t been there since March 2020 and I loved it. I don’t have any wonderful original wisdom to mark the day, so I’ll leave you with a quote from the Dalai Lama. Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible
I’ve been back at work for a week now, and I don’t feel I’ve got much done. It’s partly that I go in later because I don’t need to give my son a lift to school, but it’s mostly that Christmas in Spain doesn’t finish until January 6th, when the kings bring presents to good children. As a result, I worked a three day week, and some of that was…
I seem to remember that the first Monday in January is, for most people, the most depressed day of the year. Christmas is over, all you’ve got left are the debts, mornings are still dark and the weather is still dreadful. So I’m counting my blessings. We’re having a cold snap, but that means the temperature has dipped to about 12 ºC at night. It’s now 19 ºC in Santa…
I made time to go and see the conjenction of Jupiter and Saturn. I’d originally planned to drive half an hour from home to Llano del Jable, on the island’s spine, but the observatory webcams showed that the clouds were higher than usual, so I went all the way up to the observatory. I haven’t done that for quite a while, but it was worth it. The longer drive meant…
For years I’ve taken bus-loads of tourists to the viewpoint at San Bartolome and every time I’d see the signpost for the “Mirador de la somada alta” (Viewpoint of the High Lookout) on the other side of the main road, pointing up a steep track. On Thursday I took a day off writing and finally went. Did I mention that it looked steep? It didn’t feel any less steep walking…
It’s rained quite a bit this last week and the island is juicy again. That means lots of fungi in the woods. I found this tiny one near Pared Vieja . I never noticed the bug on it until I started taking photos. Both the fungi and the bug are seriously tiny. I took a photo with my fingertip for comparison. The photo below is a blusher, Amanita rubescens, again…