SHOW & TELL - Santa Cruz

We were in Santa Cruz the other day to meet our sister-in-law off a cruise ship for lunch.
She can't walk very far, so we had a coffee first and looked at the trees in their knitted or crocheted jackets which I blogged about on 15th.
Then we walked around the town for a while and came across this really sad sight beside the church. All the lovely craft work - plaster village streets complete with doors balconies and roofs - that had been part of their Belen (crib) had simply been chucked out for the bin men.
"Surely you're not going to take that home?" the OH and the SIL asked me, and do you know what? I was tempted.

TREE-HUGGERS?

We went to Santa Cruz this morning to meet our sister-in-law who was visiting on a cruise ship - the Queen Mary II.
Now there's a ship that actually looks like a ship rather than a block of flats on its side.
But I digress.

The first thing we noticed in the Plaza de Espana was a tree in a woolly pullover, then several more - a whole avenue of them in fact.

Aren't they wonderful?

 Some wore knitted coats . .

 . .  others were in crochet . .

some in a mixture of both . . 

and one had a snake wrapped round its neck.  

Eccentric? Yes. Pointless?? No. We thought the fact that they made people smile was reason enough for this form of art.

The Queen Mary II looked lovely as well.

CANARIAN JUBILEE

Yesterday evening we drove up to Santa Cruz for a concert at the Auditorio in its beautiful setting overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
Jonathan Webb conducted la Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife as they played Sibelius  and Nielsen, but in honour of HRH Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee they started the programme with the march "Orb and Sceptre" which Sir William Walton wrote for her Coronation.

We had been invited to the concert, along with a dozen or so other members of the British expat community, by the President of the Cabildo, Senor Ricardo Melchior Navarro, and the British Consul to the Canary Islands, Maria Lang, and we were expected for drinks and nibbles beforehand.

"Be there promptly at 7.30," we were told - we had to collect our tickets from the Consul because there was no time to post them - and so, together with Kelly and Jean, we arrived half an hour early. Could we get in? No way! Every door was shut or manned by staff who directed us elsewhere. The Auditorio is splendid, and they haven't spoiled its clean lines by anything as mundane as seats outside, or a cafe nearby, and definitely no toilets.
  After we had wandered round the environs for a while, the cafeteria finally opened and we rushed inside to avail ourselves of the toilets - bliss - and buy a bottle of water at only four times the shops prices. Still no sign of the Consul.
Eventually we located the tiny lobby in the bowels of the building off the parking garage where we were supposed to meet her, and shook Senor Melchior's hand in front of a photographer who seemed to be armed to the teeth with enough cameras to make a full-length documentary. Then we ascended in a tiny lift to the backstage areas, through a maze of corridors and into a reception room where we met Jonathan Webb.
  After a glass of wine, a piece of cheese, and a few photographs to mark the occasion for posterity, the OH and I walked up to the balcony with Senor Melchior, who talked about his unfounded fear when the Auditorio was being built that the accoustics wouldn't match up to the architect's promises (or salary!) My first view of the interior of the accoustically-correct roof was from the stairs up to the balcony.

This is a photo of the Consul and the President of the Cabildo - she's the Consul for all seven Canary Islands and seems never to stop for breath, and he's the head honcho in Tenerife.And this is me, overtaken by such a rush of patriotism that I spent the previous afternoon making a red, white and blue choker to hold my Royal British Legion badge!

CALIMAS, COLUMBUS, CAVES & CARNAVAL

CALIMAS blow in from Africa and can be as insubstantial as mist or thick as a CLOTH. CLOUDS can flow down the mountain like treacle over a pudding, or CLIMB as the sun heats the ground. It can be difficult sometimes to tell the difference between cloud and calima until the sinuses fill up with CATARRH. Then it’s a calima. The last one must have had a nasty African virus stuck to its sand-grains because I've had a CATASTROPHIC CHEST infection and hacking COUGH for two weeks. Yet still I managed to keep up the blogs – I hope you’re impressed.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS CALLED in at the CANARIES on his way to America, and the history books tell us that he picked up supplies. What most of them fail to mention is that he also COMMANDEERED some slaves, so when Spain CELEBRATES Columbus Day, we have Dia de Canarias. To the English it is ironic that the Spanish port named after him is Puerto COLON.

The CONQUISTADORES didn’t get everything their own way, though. There are CUEVAS (CAVES) all over the island, many of them almost inaccessible, and the locals who lived in them waged guerrilla warfare against the invaders for years.

Many caves are still used for storage, primarily of wine and CAVA, the local CHAMPAGNE. Some are still inhabited, with walls at the front, extra rooms CARVED out at the back, electricity and water installed.

I heard of one family who lived for years in a cave with a ladder as the only access - imagine CARRYING the shopping home!

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And of course, no C would be COMPLETE without mentioning CARNAVAL – that month of madness that CULMINATES in a parade of COSTUMES so vast that only the strongest can wear them. The buses fill up with transvestites as the macho males reveal their feminine side, the CRUZ ROJA sets up a tent hospital in Santa Cruz, and every COLEGIO has its own COLOURFUL parade.