Hello Isabel and HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

This is a blog all for you, and only for you, so that I can share some of the things I see and hear that I think you might like. This first one is a volcano called Mount Etna in Sicily. See the cloud in the middle of the blue sky? That’s not a cloud. At least, it’s not a rain cloud, it’s a big, hot, dirty mess of ash and smoke and dust that have been thrown up into the sky. I took this photograph a couple of weeks ago when I was there. It only counts as a small eruption for a volcano so there was no danger but even standing all that distance away it was a very noisy business. Great big creaks and groans, like a cross between an “I’m huuuuuungry” stomach rumble and a noisy aeroplane.

It feels magical standing on the slopes of a volcano. You can see lots of black rock, or  lava. You probably know more about volcanoes than I do, but the lava bursts out of a volcano when it erupts, pouring out from the middle of the earth, at such high temperatures (anywhere from 700c – 1200c which when you think that boiling water in a kettle is only 100c is pretty steamy) that the rock is melted, or molten, and runs downhill in bubbling hot black and orange streams before solidifying as it cools.

Here’s some solid lava, from an old eruption, a bit closer up.

And here’s a tiny piece I brought home for you, that I’ll give you when I see you later.

And here’s a video of Mount Etna erupting a few weeks before I was there – painting the sky red with hot hot lava.

Mount Etna is incredibly beautiful. You can see scars and lines across the slopes where hot lava flows have cut through the flowers and trees and bushes, killing everything in its path, and nothing has grown back yet. Then lichen grows back first, and gradually other flowers and plants follow. On Etna there was a lot of yellow broom, wild orchids and tiny wild sweet peas. I pressed some of them in the pages of my notebook so you could have your own little slice of a real volcano.