Oh what a twitter!

I think this is the latest I've ever been Blipping!  It's quarter to midnight and it's been another busy day here in Madeira.  We did have a bit of a lie in this morning as we were going to a belated welcome meeting at 10.30 having missed the one we should have gone to on Saturday.  That done we set off for the mountains!

Now, when in Funchal, the sat nav develops an aversion to staying on the main road which is one hairpin after another as it winds itself up the hills.  Sat Nav decides to go straight up the incredibly steep cut through roads which end up getting narrower and narrower and steeper and stepper until normal man in normal car is practically burning the clutch out on all the hill starts...  Anyway, once we had got ourselves out of that little situation, we got to the top of Pico do Areeiro at 1880 meters (Or something close), where we were up above the cloud and it was very cold!  We didn't stay there long as we wanted to try a little more levada walking from Ribeiro Frio.  We walked the one way and found a delectable little waterfall to walk under which you can find in extras.  I had a lovely time playing with Shutter speeds and as I had chosen to use the macro lens today  I almost felt closer to being a bit of a photographer!  Then we walked the other way along a different levada and ended up at Balcoes where this little chap and his mate amused us for a time.  Most conveniently, there was an information board about Madeiran Birds, so I can tell you that this is a Madeiran Chaffinch!  He's cute.

To cut along story short, we ran over some stone or other on the way back up the very steep hill to our apartment and thought ourselves lucky that the only damage was a puncture.  Of course, the can of tyre goo wouldn't work, it hadn't got the right connector, and there wasn't a jack in the car. SOOOOOO, long conversations with car hire people, they sent someone to collect the car, sent a taxi for us to go to the airport (30KM) away, to collect a replacement, so we got back here at 11.15 so I need to Blip!

Blip done for Tiny Tuesday!