LEARNING THE LANGUAGE - A-Z Challenge

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE – Yes, I have learned Spanish – it would have been rude not to. I am a foreigner who chose to move here, and it’s a Spanish speaking island.

I don’t speak it perfectly by any means, but I can hold a conversation and shop without pointing - there's a limit to what you can convey with sign language.

I can also cope with most medical situations. By giving myself a crash course in medical-speak I even survived a week in hospital having a hip replacement after living here for only a year.

As hospitals go, the Clinica Verde in Las Americas - a private hospital that takes some national health patients - isn't a bad place to be incarcerated, though having a bed bath in a room with two other patients and no curtains was a novel experience!

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Our lives are enriched by being able to talk to Spanish people as well as English, and I have sometimes helped our 10 year old neighbour with her English homework. For the next month I will also be helping her father learn English, and that's even more of a challenge, as his native tongue is Italian!

 Call me Professora Liz!  

LAUNDRY – One of the advantages of life in Tenerife is that you very rarely need a tumble-drier, but not everyone has a terrace like ours, so they Leave their Laundry out on the pavement.  I took this photo in a back alley in Los Abrigos. It doesn't get much sun but the temperature was 30 degrees.

And this line of washing in Las Galletas gets the sun all day. There is also a graffiti'd line of washing on the wall behind it - a visual joke which always makes me smile.

... and, talking as we were of hip replacements, here's a bit of FLASH FICTION to finish with.

LOOKING AFTER MOTHER

My world has shrunk to this.

I should be grateful – they’ve decorated the room and hung pretty curtains. 

But the window is double-glazed, and although I can see the children throwing snowballs I can’t hear them.

I’m afraid to look in the mirror in case I’ve disappeared.

I wanted to go outside in the snow yesterday but I couldn’t find my boots, and I knew Edie had hidden them when she said, “You could break your hip, Mother, and then where would you be?”

In a nursing home is where I’d be, with other people to talk to.

Edie's gone out for a while - I think I’ll get my coat.

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TIDY MIND?

I have had such a productive day you wouldn't believe!
This isn't my actual desk but it bears a strong resemblance to how it has looked for weeks.
I spent this afternoon getting it sorted. First I went through nine months-worth of Writing Magazines and cut out all the articles I wanted to keep. Then I realized I didn't have enough file space, so I re-organized my souvenir files. This left me with two plastic-sleeve-page folders for said articles and a fat folder of souvenirs sorted into envelopes marked with such enticing titles as "Old school reports" and "One-act plays" - don't ask!

Now my "office" is pristine - well, apart from the articles I want to read now rather than keep for posterity, and the high-lighted torn-out bits about agents who might be worth approaching, and the list of Rod McKuen books I want to look up on Amazon, and the snippets that might put some life into my Writers' Circle.

I did try to get some writing done this morning, honest injun!

I went down to Los Abrigos and sat in a cafe with a short story that needs a lot of work, but I picked an English cafe, and there were English people there, talking in English. Far too distracting. And their coffee machine had broken so I paid 1.50 for a cup of tea I could have made at home. So I drove back, and on the way I took a side road I have been meaning to investigate for years. To a place called Atogo.
It was a good job I was driving carefully - any faster than 30K and I'd have been off the edge of that bend and 50 metres down in a barranco! After that the road wound like an un-ravelled jumper, and there was no sign of civilisation - I could have been anywhere. I thought Atogo would be small, sandwiched as it must be between Los Abrigos and the motorway, but when I eventually found it there was even a football ground. Maybe 20 houses in all, but they still had a football ground - trust the Canarians to get their priorities right!

LINDA & LOS ABRIGOS

LINDA means “pretty” in Spanish – an appropriate name for my daughter-in-LAW - And of course, L is for LOVE.

LANDING in Tenerife you will see, LURKING in the terminal, LINES of tour operators waiting to LEAD their LAMBS to the coaches and whisk them off to their hotels. Too many of these are all-inclusive these days and consequently the average tourist LEAVES again without catching more than a glimpse of our LOVELY island.

LUCKILY there are some who will venture out, board a bus or hire a car, and LAUNCH themselves into the unknown. It’s almost impossible to get really LOST because if you’re going up there’s Mount Teide as a LANDMARK, and if you’re going down there’s the Atlantic. So LEAVE the beach or the pool for a day and explore - even the most ordinary of towns can be hiding secret treasures behind the tourist façade. For example ---
LOS ABRIGOS is a village near the airport. The seafront has been pesestrianized in recent years, and when you walk past the tiny church you will find, overlooking the small harbour, a wealth of restaurants. It's worth visiting just for the food. There's a langostera in a side street that guarantees your seafood will be fresh, though I'd better warn you - even my OH can't manage more than five langostinos - they're huge.

But to work up
an appetite before you eat, take a stroll up the slope on the far side of the harbour, where you will find a rocky cove with the original landing–place for boats – a LETHAL one-in-three ramp with planks inlaid for purchase. Above the cove, a narrow pathway winds round a house and along the steep cliff-face to the top road.

Steps near the ramp take you past a boat-shed where they still make and repair boats, to a tangle of LITTLE LANES between the houses of the old village that LIE clustered together for protection against the Atlantic winds. My daughter-in-law, who is an artist, took some wonderful photographs of old doors and windows for her thesis.

After this dip into the past you can spend a LEISURELY evening eating your dinner overlooking the harbour, LISTENING to the wavelets LAP the rocks, LAZILY LOOKING at the stars, and watching the LIGHTS reflected in the LIMPID waters.

And this is spooky. When I LOADED this photo of a terrace garden onto my LAPTOP, it asked me “Who is this?” But there’s nobody in the picture. LOOK very closely at the white wall in the front of the picture and you might just see a crack and a spot that could add up to a face – or a ghost?

LABELS ARE LIMITING. What exactly does LITERARY mean in the writing world? We’re advised to check out an agent before submitting, and the word literary has always puzzled me. I write stories – who decides if they’re LITERATURE or not?

Sitting on my computer is a completed book about a young LABOURER-cum-petty criminal who rescues an abused boy, and how the Strange Adoption changes both their LIVES. A professional critic and my writers’ circle say it should definitely be published, but if I can’t fit it into a category, how can I pitch it to an agent?

LASTLY, for anyone who has been missing my Toy Poems – go on the poem page to read about Boofuls the LAVENDER bear.