SUN,
SEA & SAND – The usual image of TENERIFE - which is true in part, although I hope my posts for the A-Z Challenge have SHOWN you there is more to the island.
SUN – we see the sun almost every day, so the logo for this year's A-Z Challenge seems appropriate today.
SEA – we are SURROUNDED by the Atlantic ocean and when the wind is in the right direction we get some SPECTACULAR waves..
If you head west from here the
next STOP is SOUTH AMERICA, from whence a friend of mine SAILED SOLO in his yacht. It took Davie 42 days and a few close calls, but he made it, though he was a lot thinner than this when he arrived in Tenerife!
SAND is
for SUNBATHING on but also for making SANDCASTLES. Some are so intricate they
take days to make, but it's an ephemeral art at the mercy of the wind and the crowds.
Here is a SHORT STORY adapted from one I wrote for Friday Fictoneers - I hope you like it.
SANDCASTLES
Juan built sandcastles for a living.
Every day he took his tools to the beach, collected damp
sand from the tide-mark, and constructed dreams. Tourists would watch and take
photographs – some even threw money into Juan’s bucket, although never enough - and each night drunks
destroyed his work.
“When will you get a proper job?” Lucia wailed, “The rent is
due.”
“I am an artist,” Juan replied grandly.
But two days later he came home to find Lucia in the street,
surrounded by their possessions and weeping bitterly. Juan kissed her and promised, ."We will have our own house soon."
"How can we? We have no money."
"I am a builder,” Juan said proudly, and on an unclaimed stretch of beach he mixed cement with the sand and
built a house.
“Take it
to policia,” Juan’s mother would have said, but he’d left home to escape her
discipline – he sold the bracelet he found in the street. Later, broke and
hungry, he stole a handbag, and soon he was a regular at the backstreet
pawnshop. 
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