Tired and relieved

Car workshop, Los Canarios, Fuencaliente

The fire's under control at long last.

The La Palma blog's been going crazy with traffic, as people tried to find out what was happening here. So I started to feel a bit like a lighthouse-keeper -- you know, responsible -- and on Monday I went out for another look at the fire.

The road was open and I got to Fuencaliente. It's in better shape than I expected, although some houses are completely burnt out, even though the house next door is frequently fine. I think it must be the result of the strong gusts coming from every direction, early on Saturday morning.

I stopped at the petrol station and had an ice-cream, while I thought about lighthouse-keepers and ghouls, and wondered which I was.

And I saw a lizard scampering among the ashes. Goodness knows how it survived, but it cheered me up.

I headed for the Princess Hotel, to check it looked OK, but it was getting late. I was hungry, I knew my son would be hungry, so I settled for seeing it from a distance, and set off home by a different route.

BBC Radio 5 Live phoned me, to ask about the fire. They'd got my details via the photos I'd sent to the BBC website. So I told them what I knew, and they said they might want to interview me live at about 6 pm.

I said, "Great" and carried on home. I was quite prepared for them to cancel if something else came up.

At Tigalate, I had to detour because the road was still closed. And the fire was still burning, although it was much, much smaller. I took some photos of the helicopters dumping water on it.



When I got home I cooked, ate, and updated the La Palma blog yet again. Then I warned my son about the probably phone interview, and made sure that I'd been to the loo and had water handy, and my son was ready to intercept any potentially noisy arrivals.

And yes, I wound up live on national radio. It was all a bit of a blur, but late, when I found it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lxsgy (I'm 1 hour and 41 minutes into into the programme) I felt I hadn't done too badly at all.

Altogether I wrote 9 updates to the La Palma blog in three days, and now that I've stopped, I feel really tired. And surprise, surprise, I'm rather behind with the domestic stuff.