Friday 6th

Greetings from the edge of the known world! If you went to a good school you will have learnt about a Greek chap called Ptolemy who lived about 1900 years ago, those of us who went to Secondary Moderns just did woodwork. Ptolemy knew the earth was round and guesstimated it’s circumference was about 18,000 miles. He collected maps and data from as many sources as possible to produce the first serious map of the world where he invented latitude and longitude to be able to place each location on a grid. As he was a logical chap he set the meridian, i.e. longitude zero at the most western point of the known world which was El Hierro where we are now.  Although the Greeks / Romans came to the island and presumably met with the local tribes they did not stay.  Ptolemy knew his map only showed about a quarter of the globe but it was an amazing bit of work which was then largely forgotten until the 14th century. Of course when we ruled the world the zero meridian was moved to pass through the centre of the universe, London or more precisely Greenwich Observatory.

Although they are close together there are no direct flights or ferries between the islands so to get here we had to fly to Tenerife and then fly back to El Hierro. On arrival in Tenerife airport I emphasised to Gill that we must not leave “air side” so what do I do, I walked through a double door and was in the outside world and had to go back through security, what a numpty. Gill refrained from taking the piss, she just looked smug as she watched me return from the safety of the departure lounge.