A trip to Puntagorda

Yesterday I left my fellers and sneaked off to Puntagorda to photograph almond blossom. As usual, I felt as though I'd bunked off school. I've seen better years - I think the wind and rain got there before me. But for all that, it was still gorgeous.

I stayed until sunset. Living on the eastern side of the island means I get to enjoy a sunrise every day (provided I get up in time) but sunsets are a rare treat.

And then I had to drive home in the dark, but it was worth it.

A Close Encounter with a Prickly Pear

I went with my friend last week to photograph a leaning dragon tree in Puntagorda, and we found a tame chough there. I think it makes a good living from tourists.

And then we went to have a look at the ravine, and I brushed gently against a prickly pear. Of course I got hundreds of spines on the shoulder my T shirt, and I couldn't think of driving back until I'd got them out, or the car seat would have pushed them into me.

My friend tried to get them out, but there were so many it was going to take forever. She even suggested driving back to her house without my T shirt, but I was worried that at least one oncoming driver would be so distracted he'd crash - it's not exactly a straight road. So we decided that the lesser evil was for me to take my T shirt off so two of us could work on removing the spines. I sat in the car for that, so as to be a bit less visible from the other side of the ravine. At least I was in the shade!

So there we were, working away at my T shirt, and an old man came down the track!

I threw the T shirt over as much of myself as possible, but he didn't seem a bit embarrassed and stood there chatting to us for at least five minutes, even after I said I'd brushed the prickly pear and got spines all over my T shirt. My friend though he had bad eyesight, and didn't see how little I was wearing. But I suspect he was just bemused, and felt you could expect any bizarre behaviour from foreigners. Or maybe he was just two sandwiches short of a picnic.

Eventually he went, and we got rid of all the prickles we could find, and drove to my friend's house. Thank goodness it was close.

And I had a shower, to get rid of as many left-over spines as possible. Yes, I found a couple in my knickers. How in God's name did they get there?

And for the next few days I was pulling them out of myself. I think I've got them all now.

But if that's what happens when you barely touch it, I'd really, really hate to fall into one.

Star Party

My friends in Franceses have amateur telescopes, and my friend in Puntagorda usually has cloudless summer nights with no street lights nearby. So we finally put the two together.

The catch is that it meant camping, because the house in Puntagorda is tiny, but that made a change.

It's almost a year since I've been camping, partly because the previous exhibition wasn't a success. (See Sleeping With My Best Friend's Wife) This time I vowed to be better prepared, and bought two new sleeping bags.

We got there for lunch, and then I left my son with our friends (who were setting up telescopes), while I went off to take photos of a local artist for Ruido. That was fascinating.

We came back and cooked a barbecue meal, watched the clouds roll in, and discussed our chances of actually seeing stars.

It stayed cloudy, and my son went to bed. We stayed up, chatting and drinking wine.

Then glory be, the clouds disappeared and the stars blazed. I woke my son.

The big 10" telescope (the one in the photo. If you look closely, you can just see my son's eye in the innermost circle.) had a technical problem, but the 90mm was fine. We just had time to get a really nice view of Jupiter, complete with cloud bands and the four Galilean moons, when the cloud rolled back.

So we went to bed. And this time I didn't freeze.

A Fat Point

On Saturday we went to see my friend in Puntagorda, which means "Fat Bridge". My husband did a bit of maintenance on her car, and we chatted, and then while they were out checking the car actually worked, I took this photo of some bricks piled up in the garden,and one of old roof tiles, ditto. They came back and we had a nice lunch on the patio and chatted. And we went to the farmers' market at the other end of the village (details on the blog about La Palma) . I bought quite a lot of veg because it looked so fresh. Then we came home and watched the football for a bit - Spain vs Sweden in the Euro Cup. (Spain won, 2-1).

There wasn't a lot of the day left by the time we got home, but we felt we'd had a good day out for once.