Filming part 4: The observatory

I arrived feeling very upset (see previous episode), but I had to calm myself down and get on with it. I had to get to the heliport by 11:45 to meet a group of tourists, and there was a lot of filming to do before then. Luckily, several people people were kind and helped me pull myself together.

So we filmed in the residencia for a bit. Then the TV people wanted somewhere you got a good view of all the telescopes - not the helipad, because we were going there later. So I took them up to the viewpoint at the Roque de los Muchachos, the highest point on the island.

I don't get up there nearly as much as I'd like, because I'm usually in too much of a hurry. Once I got up there, I found myself promising to do it more often. It wasn't a struggle to smile any more. So they filmed me saying hello to the "muchachos" - a rock formation that looks vaguely like a group of boys, and they filmed me with the telescopes behind me, and they filmed the view.

Then we went down to the Italian telescope, the Galileo, so they could film my husband. They asked him how we met, and he had to stop talking because he had a lump in his throat and a tear in his eye. After sixteen years of marriage!

And then we had to dash down to the heliport, to meet a group of tourists. I gave them the usual speech on why the observatory is here, (which the TV people didn't film much of) and we went off to Grantecan. The TV people didn't seem to film much of that either, although they did take quite a few shots of the inside of the telescope. I didn't mind, I was busy looking after the tourists.

When the tour finished and the tourists left, we finally filmed what will be the opening shots. I might have known.

Once they'd finished, the adrenaline left too. I drove home and collapsed into bed for hours.