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,…
I slept badly on Wednesday night, so I wasn’t in the mood for a long excursion on Thursday, but I really enjoyed it. As we ate our picnic lunch we could see the snow on the peaks. Sure enough, there was pletny of snow still up there, although it was really warm, about 15 ºC. We stopped first beside the MAGIC telescope for a photo opportunity, and I couldn’t resist…
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,…
Even La Palma we have bad weather sometimes. Usually it’s in winter when a big depression rolls in from the Atlantic, bringing wind and rain for a day or two. I’m philosophical about it: you can’t have the rainbbows and lush forests I love so much without rain sometimes. But it is a pity for holiday makers, especially when they come here to escape the cold. Yesterday La Palma had…
100xCiencia was a conference about scienec journalism and outreach. I’d have loved to go to the public talk, but I was so busy catching up after Astrofest that I didn’t hear about it until afterwards. On the other hand, I did get two days guiding work out of it: one trip to the observatory pon Thursday and one to the north of the island on Sautday. The trip to the…
On Saturday I was in the Roque car park selling books from the boot of my car, when the ravens turned up, begging for food. That’s why I keep cat food in the car, specially for them. Then they got curious about the boot of my car and the books. I started to get a bit nervous when s/ze took an interest in my pot of change. That’s the black…