Blasted car rally

I really hate the annual car rally that comes past my front door. The snarling noise goes on for almost 11 hours and I can't get my car out unless I remembered to park it elsewhere before they start.

 This year was worse.

I left home early to be sure I could get to work at the observatory, got as far as Mirca, and found another section of road blocked for the same damn rally. This meant a detour of well over an hour through the north of the island to get to the Roque de Los Muchachos. I managed to time coming home so that Mirca was open, and parked in the village.

And then some officious oaf insisted that I wasn't allowed past the barrier to walk the 100 yards to my own house.

I couldn't believe it! I phoned my husband to tell him, and he couldn't believe it either. He came out to investigate, and nobody stopped him. So we walked home together, and nobody stopped us, thank goodness.

So I can see three possibilities.

1. the official changed his mind in 5 minutes without telling me. 
2. he's incredibly sexist - middle aged woman needs a man to stop her jumping out in front of a rally car or 
3. he didn't believe I lived where I said I lived until he saw a local man come and meet me. 

Whatever, I could have bloody well done without it.

Cheeky Raven

I had two groups up at the observatory today. There was a pretty cold wind on the heliport at 10 am, so I cut that part a bit short. But not before one of the ravens turned up to say "Hello."

Well, I'd got some cat biscuits in the car just for him/her, and s/he ate from my hand while people took photos, which was all very nice. Then I laid the box on the car's bonnet to carry on talking. And the raven pecked a hole in it to start helping itself.

Cheeky beggar!

"The Spontaneous Guide" UPDATED

One thing I never mentioned about visiting the hot spring: there were three Brits there who don't speak much Spanish. So I wound up translating for them. It was only afterwards that I found that one of them, Steve Simpson, was an artist invited by the Tourist Board to visit and illustrate La Palma as part of #onthedraw. Even then, I wasn't expecting to see myself on Facebook.

I love it! Everybody I know is rolling up - cuddly, bird's nest of red hair, open mouth, waving arms - it's bang on. And one friend was kind enough to say that she likes the rapt attention of my audience. Oh, and that's Steve with the beard.

UPDATE: The drawing is not by Steve Simpson, it's by his host on the island Victor Jaubert.

Paddling in a Hot Spring.

Yay! I finally got to paddle in a hot spring.

It was probably in 1991 when my Spanish got good enough to realise that Fuencaliente means "hot spring". I got quite excited, because I'd always fancied seeing a hot spring, and maybe even a paddle in one.

So I asked around. And I found that there used to be a hot spring, and a whole spa industry around it - and it got buried by the eruption in 1677. So that was that then.

But the island council finally found the spring in 2005, by sinking boreholes down to sea-level in the approximate location, and then working towards the heat source. Of course nobody could do much with a little borehole.

But the human-sized tunnel is open at last, and I finally got to go. And I paddled in one of the pools - well, dipped my toes in anyway.

So that's me happy for today.