Thursday, August 02, 2007

Bad news

We've had a heatwave, and I've been busy.

On Monday afternoon as I passed through town with my son, the thermometer outside the port read 40C (104 F). In that sort of heat, you don't feel like doing much, although I did continue my battle against the fleas.

On Tuesday my friends Helen and Theresa finally collected their Spanish number plates, so later that morning I went with Helen to sort out their car insurance. The office had aircon, which was lovely. The girls stayed for lunch, and the day just disappeared, with nobody feeling like making much effort. Meanwhile massive forest fires raged on Tenerife and Gran Canaria. There's a rather spectacular satellite photo here.

On Wednesday it was a little cooler, thank goodness. My friend had to go and deal with a family crisis, so I acquired a temporary daughter. I took her and my son to Franceses to see Helen and Theresa. For once I didn't take any photos because it's all so dried up at present. Their vines look sick, which is probably the heat, but they've been doing wonders in the house.

Today the fires are both out, but the beautiful village of Masca on Tenerife has been burnt, and a missing teenager has been found dead on Tenerife. It seems all the news is bad today.

I'll just have to hope tomorrow is better.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We got evacuated too, but although we aren't far from Masca and most people here knows someone there, I haven't been able to find out how much of it was lost yet. I'm still hoping that it was not all of it.

Sheila, Canary Islands said...

Hi Pamela,

I really hope your family and house will be OK.

I heard that six houses burnt in Masca, and I think most of that beautiful valley too.

Did you hear that we had a small fire here too? Thank goodness they managed to stomp it out while it was still small.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Sheila, yes, no material damages for us, but this valley only escaped by the skin of it's teeth. I think we're all in shock still, not just for what has happened, but over how close it was to being so much worse. Of course, it doesn't help being got up at 5 a.m. and told to leave all you own.

They still had the roads closed over to the Masca valley today and wouldn't even let the inhabitants back to feed animals. That mess, well it hardly bears thinking about, but it's got to be ugly.

Yes, I did hear about the fire there too and, indeed thank goodness you did not also have to go through anything like this. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I do wish some bad things on the morons who started them, mind you.