WATER MUSIC - a story in 100 words

WATER MUSIC

On holiday in Tenerife, who could resist a free concert?

It didn’t take them long to get ready – the Spanish waiter told them bikinis and sarongs were the norm. They started on the vodka in their hotel, mixed generous slugs into bottles of Coke, and went to the beach.

It was heaving, the music loud, the atmosphere electric.

They danced on sand that radiated the day’s heat, and watched the lights sparkle on the sea. It looked different at night – mysterious – and they dropped their sarongs to slip into its silken coolness.

Beach cleaners found their sarongs at dawn.

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There were many beach concerts when I lived in Tenerife, though I chickened out of going to one - I have more respect for my hearing! The sand needed sifting afterwards, despite the banning of glasses or bottles, but how could police control a jam-packed crowd of holiday-makers? Swimming at night, when drunk, is not a good idea either.

Thanks to Rochelle for running our group of flash writers, and to CE Ayr for his photograph she used as a prompt on her blog  https://rochellewisoff.com/  If you'd like to join our happy throng, click on the froggy on there which will take you to the link page.

I hope you are all well, staying safe, washing your hands, and ignoring idiotic advice to inject houshold substances or take unprescribed medicine!
Yes, I'm talking like a mum, but today I'm allowed to - it's my son's birthday, and he's of an age that reminds me how ancient I am :(

RONDA - a true story in one hundred words.

In Great Britain we drive on the left, so we turn left at a roundabout, not right. This photograph reminded me so strongly of my years spent living abroad that I had to write about it, so here is my own piece of potted history - every word of it is true!

RONDA

We were living in Tenerife when the Cabildo introduced rondas. Many locals had never seen a roundabout, let alone driven round one.

 The first instructions in newspapers were wrong and had to be amended. Leaflets appeared in letterboxes, posters in supermarkets, there were endless discussions in bars.

Then, suddenly they were here.

Wise people stayed off the roads for a while, but others had jobs to get to, or shopping to do, and had no choice. There were countless accidents, many gesticulating arguments, a few deaths.

Years later the local drivers still hadn’t learned that a roundabout wasn’t a parking zone.

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Thanks as ever to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers, and to C E Ayr for the photo which brought back so many memories. To read other FF stories, click on the frog on https://rochellewisoff.com/

HEN PARTY - reprising a 100 word story

HEN PARTY

Why this story? you may ask. Because I'm off to Tenerife with my daughters and granddaughter for a week, and we might see some bright lights while we're there. Also because we fly out at the crack of dawn tomorrow and I haven't finished packing! So here's one I wrote earlier - three years earlier, to be exact. Hope it meets with approval.
Visit Rochelle's blog to read what others have written this week.https://rochellewisoff.com/  and apologies for not visiting many others myself - I will be a tad busy with a 4 year old!

HEN  PARTY

Six of us flew to Tenerife for Leanne’s hen do. The apartment was pretty basic, but it didn’t matter because we were out every night.

In one night-club this creepy bloke bought us all drinks, and when we staggered home in the pitch dark he tried to kiss me. Eeuuw!

He pinned me against a palm-tree – I still remember his long pointed teeth – but then the moon came out like a spotlight, there was a horrible screech, and a black shape flapped up into the tree. When I looked round, the bloke had just vanished.

A real weirdo, that one!

ADVENT CALENDAR - DAY FOURTEEN

TODAY'S CHALLENGE - Write a piece in which the setting is one of the main characters. Construct a story that couldn't be told in any other place.

After 24 hours on Nanny duty, I have adapted a story I wrote while living in Tenerife, where witnessing distressing scenes very similar to this one made a lasting impression on me. Rickety wooden boats would set out from Africa to cross the treacherous 100 miles of sea - one was discovered weeks later in America, having missed the Canary Islands altogether. All the occupants were dead.

The text with this photo says 'Cayuco containing 105 immigrants arrives in Tenerife 14/1/2007.' One hundred and five! Seeing the empty boat the next day prompted me to write this story.

CAYUCO

A fishing boat spotted the ninth cayuco of the year wallowing in the trough between massive full-moon waves, its occupants’ faces grey with sickness and terror.

Tourists took photographs as exhausted people clambered up stone steps to be met by policia and medicos on the harbour wall. There were gasps when another layer was revealed – second-class passengers under the feet of the first, their clothing soaked in brine and vomit.

Just one woman remained in the cayuco, searching desperately through the filth until she found, wedged beneath the lowest seat, a bundle that had stopped crying hours before.

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AND - in case you missed my previous post - my book WOLF PACK is now available on Amazon, just in time for Christmas! Wolf Pack is the second in my Living Rock series, the fist of which is A VOLCANIC RACE. When you've read them, please do consider writing a review - an author's lifeblood and incentive to continue. Here's the link for WOLF PACK -   https://www.amazon.com/dp/1790375088

ALFREDO'S - a story in one hundred words

ALFREDO’S

There’s a secret hidden in the side streets of our town, known only to the locals. Tourists are directed to promenade restaurants with music, free entertainment and lights reflected in the night-dark sea.

On rare occasions some will venture further and discover Alfredo’s, where they will be shown to a table outside – only the kitchen is indoors – and given a carafe of local wine. There is no menu. Alfredo serves whatever his sons caught that day – sardines, swordfish, octopus – with salty potatoes, salsa picante and tomato salad.

The alley breeze keeps the diners cool, and if it rains there are Alfredo’s famous umbrellas.

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This week's image - thank you, Dale Rogerson - took me straight back to Tenerife, where there is a restaurant much as I describe here. It is in Los Cristianos, called El Cine, and has been in the same family since the 1970s. We spent many a happy evening there, usually with family or friends. 
Thanks to https://rochellewisoff.com/  for hosting Friday Fictioneers. If you follow the links from her blog you can read how other writers interpreted the image.

I have been busy these past few weeks with a house move, and apart from a prodigious amount of painting still to do, we are settled in comfortably for the duration. ie - until they carry us out! See my previous post for a photo.

SNOW ANGEL - a 100 word story for Friday Fictioneers

SNOW ANGEL

With the temperature twenty-five on the beach, the last thing we expected was snow, but after a night of heavy rain the mountain shone brilliant white.

After lunch we hired a car and drove up to look. It was magical but freezing, and we weren’t dressed for snow.

Driving back round never-ending hairpin bends, my foot slipped on the pedal and we slid towards a vertical drop.

Two feet from certain death we stopped, with the bonnet touching a snowman.

Or so I thought, until our snowman spread its beautiful wings and soared away over the sunlit void.

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Thanks to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers on her blog https://rochellewisoff.com/ and to Jan Wayne Fields for the photo prompt. You can read other stories by following the above link.

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When I lived in Tenerife, the sight of snow on the mile-high Mount Teide was an annual treat for the eyes. Once the Cabildo had cleared the very steep and winding access road, locals would drive up there to play in the snow, even enjoying barbecues, before building snowmen on their bonnets and driving down - the winner being the driver who got the furthest before the snowman melted! 

There is so much more to Tenerife than the average tourist sees - it is hardly surprising that my adopted island inspired my Living Rock series of books. If you would like to buy A Volcanic Race, the first in the series, click on the cover at the top of this page.

AN EXPAT'S LAMENT - A POEM

I'M A WINNER!  A forum to which I belong had a competition in July to write a poem on the theme of HOLIDAY. I won with this poem, written in memory of our many years in Tenerife. I should add that all of our visitors were welcome, and that this is tongue-in-cheek - honest!

IT’S NO HOLIDAY FOR US – an expat’s lament

We have so many visitors

we have to take bookings.

They bring bottles of duty-free

to an island where booze is cheap,

and a pound of mild Cheddar

when we requested strong.

For a week they eat our food,

use our electricity,

and leave hair in the shower.

‘Your life is one long holiday,’

they say,

‘It’s all right for some,’

as we drive to the beauty spots

for the hundredth time.

Then they buy us a meal,

and we leave them at the airport,

before going home to sweep sand off the floors

and wash their sheets ready for the next lot.

HEN PARTY - one hundred words for Friday Fictioneers

HEN  PARTY

Six of us flew to Tenerife for Leanne’s hen do. The apartment was pretty basic, but it didn’t matter because we were out every night.

In one nightclub this creepy bloke bought us all drinks, and when we staggered home in the pitch dark he tried to kiss me. Eeuuw!

He pinned me against a palm-tree – I still remember his long pointed teeth – but then the moon came out like a spotlight, there was a horrible screech, and a black shape flapped up into the tree. When I looked round, the bloke had just vanished.

A real weirdo, that one!

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Dozens of people from all over the world write a 100-word story each week prompted by a photograph. This week's photo was taken by Dale Rogerson. Go to https://rochellewisoff.com/ and follow the links to Friday Fictioneers, read what others have written, and perhaps to take part?

THE HIGH LIFE - fiction in 100 words

THE HIGH LIFE

Karl wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was good at football – very good – and was quickly snapped up by a major team.

He was regularly front-page news, blinking in flashlights outside nightclubs with a series of stunning girlfriends. 

His team managed to keep his worst excesses out of the papers – he was their golden boy as long as he kept scoring goals with his world-famous headers. His life was the envy of many – until he developed a blood clot on his brain.

Deprived of the adulation on which he thrived, his downward spiral was swift, and ultimately fatal.

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This week's photo is one which I took myself ! I was out for a walk one morning in Tenerife when I spotted this macabre still-life. To read how other writers inerpreted the image, go to  https://rochellewisoff.com/ and follow the link.

This story is not the only one I've written this week - I am delighted to tell you that on  http://visualverse.org/about-visual-verse/  you will find my name in the list of authors.

PACKING - a story in 100 words

Rochelle, the seemingly tireless leader of Friday Fictioneers is relaxing for the summer weeks by posting previously used photo prompts on her blog.  https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/ This photo taken by Douglas M MacIlray is the first picture for which I have already written a story, but you're not getting that - for one thing I can't remember what I wrote before!

Besides, the new story below is more topical, as my daughter and son-in-law are in the throes of packing to move from Tenerife to Northern Ireland. This story is for them. 

PACKING

Mandy was emptying the top of the wardrobe when something coiled around her wrist. Startled, she yanked her hand back, but it was only a flex.

“Alan! I’ve found that drill!” she yelled and tugged at the flex. The drill shot free suddenly and just missed Mandy’s shoulder, pulling her off balance. Instinctively she clutched the nearest shelf and toppled backwards with the wardrobe on top of her. Unhurt but smothered by clothes, she yelled again. “Alan! I need help!”

But Alan had found another forgotten treasure, and it’s impossible to hear anything with your head inside a diving helmet.

HUNTING - a 100 word story

HUNTING

When his original home crumbled around him, Jean-Claude wandered rootless for decades, flitting at night from one roost to another – until he found the strip joint and could sleep through the day undisturbed.

Hidden in the folds of dusty curtains, he scanned the clientele to pick his victim, then lurked in the street to swoop when they staggered out. A slit throat covered his handiwork before he slid them quietly into the river.

His secret night-life went smoothly – until the woman upstairs hung garlic up to dry. Unable to get past, Jean-Claude was trapped.

Rat blood isn’t as tasty as human.

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Thanks to Rochelle, who hangs out at  https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/  for the photo that prompted this story. Follow the blue frog trail on her blog to read what other writers from all over the world wrote from the same prompt.

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My story was written between bouts of housework - keeping our apartment spotless for another viewing. If you want to see what it looks like spick and span, click on the Apartment for sale page at the top of this blog.

Thank you for visiting - and please leave a comment so I know I'm not talking to myself!

CLIMBING - a 100 word story

CLIMBING

“Nice girls don’t climb trees!” I can hear Ma saying that now - and my childish answer, “Why should boys have all the fun?”

But my childhood was short. I went into service aged twelve, and my duties included cleaning the big chandelier. One day it dropped too quickly and the chain whipped me into the air, but I shinned down nimbly - and Master James saw me.

We were friends in secret for six years, but when we announced our engagement, James’ mother accused me of social climbing.

“Mary’s good at climbing,” James said, and the old dragon couldn’t understand why we laughed..

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This story was written for Friday Fictioneers, prompted by the photo posted on Rochelle's blog  https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/. Follow the Blue Frog trail on Rochelle's blog to read what scores of other writers thought when they saw the photograph.

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Our apartment in Tenerife is on the market, so PM me if you're thinking of buying your own place in the sun. We have no chandeliers - only ceiling fans!

ANDROMEDA - a 100 word story

Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle who sends the members a photo prompt each week on her blog  https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/   Follow the Blue Frog link on her blog to read the other stories..

ANDROMEDA  (or The Long Goodbye)

Celia decided to leave Henry on July 23^rd 1993, the twins’ third birthday. She caught him in a clinch with Daphne Mortimer in the summerhouse when he should have been blowing up balloons.

After consideration, and believing her children deserved a stable home, she put her decision on hold and accepted Henry’s apologetic diamonds gracefully.

Each subsequent affaire earned her another rock, which for twenty years eased the chafing of her self-imposed bondage.

What broke the final link in the chain was catching Henry in flagrante in the hayloft –  with the groom she had hired specifically for her own amusement..

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Please do leave a comment below, and feel free to browse back through my earlier posts including the daily stints through April for the A-Z Challenge. Oh yes - and my APARTMENT page if you fancy buying your own place in the sun!

DIA DE CANARIAS

DIA DE CANARIAS = CANARIES DAY

On 30th May each year Tenerife, together with the other six Canary Islands of Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, celebrates Canaries Day - the anniversary of the inauguration of the first Canary Islands Parliament in 1983.

Everywhere you go you will see people dressed in the traditional costumes and hear the local music. Schools celebrate the day before, and Parque de la Reina is no exception. Here are some photos I took of the school parade on Friday morning.

A local band

I was given one of these buns baked by the school.

 

Nothing is more refreshing than a slice of watermelon

One of my early morning walk friends with her, granddaughter and great-granddaughter 

AND - if you want to buy an apartment in Parque de la Reina, mine is FOR SALE

Click on APARTMENT at the top of my blog to see the photographs.

I HEAR THUNDER - a 100 word story

After a fortnight away in England visiting family we have decided to drop the price of our apartment. I have therefore spent the last few days re-advertising it. If you like the idea of owning an apartment in Tenerife, the details are on the APARTMENT page of this blog.

Now I can concentrate on writing again, here is my contribution to FRIDAY FICTIONEERS prompted by a photograph on Rochelle's blog   https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/



I  HEAR  THUNDER

After months of hiding in cellars, trembling at each explosion and venturing out only when driven by hunger, Shira crept away through the ruins.

Carrying her daughter among broken timbers and glass shards, she dodged from shadow to shadow until they were in the fields.

Even in the ditches they dropped flat every time a bomb fell, but when they reached the hills the sounds of war were mercifully distant.

Sheltered beneath a tree, they slept until woken by a crash directly overhead. The child screamed, but Shira said soothingly, “Hush - it is only thunder. See, here comes the rain.”

VOLCANOES on TENERIFE - A-Z challenge

THERE ARE 
411 VOLCANOES ON TENERIFE !!

NOT THAT WE NEED TO WORRY, apparently. When the tiny island of El Hierro had months of undersea eruptions and earthquakes a couple of years ago, the Tenerife Government issued this statement:

The Cabildo would like to stress that Tenerife remains a safe destination, not only because there is currently no evidence of any risk of volcanic activity, but also because the island is equipped to deal with any volcanic risk situation (evacuation, volcanic surveillance and monitoring programme, etc).

The caldera of Mount Teide is one of the largest in the world, so when the top of the original mountain blew off it must have been a spectacular sight - albeit one best viewed from afar.

The landscape of our adopted island inspired me to write my first book some years ago. Originally I called it ROCK CHILD but in its present draft it is called VOLCANIC RACE. This prologue has never seen the light of day before, so please be kind - and if you're an agent, I'm looking for one!

Picture the scene – a world dotted with volcanoes and cut by rivers of fire that glow bright gold under a dark sky. Dinosaurs graze and hunt, tiny creatures scuttle, insects zip and pester.

Then a meteor the size of a small moon screams a fiery path through the fume-filled atmosphere and bombs a mile-deep hole into the earth’s surface. A billion tons of pulverized rock fountain skywards and the explosion flings an ellipse of mountains around the crater.

The impact creates a hair-line fissure that zigzags down the continent, and the land immediately spews lava in a frantic effort to weld itself back together. Burning vegetation pours smoke into the thickening atmosphere, the stars vanish, and morning never comes. All grazing creatures starve and the predators follow them to a premature grave, insects eat their flesh until that, too, is gone, and there is no life left on the face of the earth.

For decades - maybe centuries – the world is in darkness. The fissure scabs over in time, and the crater, two hundred miles long and girded by mountains high enough to be ice-clad even in summer, is gradually filled by rain, snow-melt and glaciers until it becomes a vast inland sea, from which three rivers spill south. The dust-cloud settles, and in this deep layer of fertile soil long-dormant seeds crack open, and the earth shines with new green.

Eventually a few fish crawl out of the sea on muscular fins and the slow process of evolution re-starts, but when water seeps into the underground lava-flows, the impatient earth mixes it with minerals to create instant life. Before apes learn to walk upright, a race of rockmen has spread out to inhabit the lands divided by the three main rivers.

Near a tributary of the most easterly of those rivers stands a small mountain which, when viewed from the plain, resembles a recumbent giant. Half-way up its steep side, just where the giant’s mouth appears to be, is a cave.

TEIDE - and a TIGER - the A-Z Challenge

Teide is the name of the highest mountain in Spanish TERRITORY and it is the central point on the Canarian Island of TENERIFE.
The black and white photo was taken many years ago and the coloured one only last winter - mountains take a long time to change!

When there isn't this much snow - the Cabildo closes the roads when there is - you can drive to within a few hundred metres of the summit and take a cable car the rest of the way. We like to stop off at a barbecue area a mile above sea level to cook sausages and drink wine. 

The air is so clear that the Tenerife Observatory is world renowned.

Sometimes you can find yourselves driving through the clouds and out above them, which is like being in an aeroplane but with your feet on the ground -

- and I plan to spend a night up on the mountain watching the stars, possibly sipping champagne, before I am much older.

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TOYS - Most children have cuddly toys - in fact I introduced you to my own doll in the E post of the A-Z challenge - and I have written poems about some of the toys my children and grandchildren have loved. With apologies if you've seen this one before, TODAY T is for TIGER

TIGER                                                                               

 TIGER

Tiger’s enormous

and covered in stripes,

if I’m tired I can ride on his back,

and I know that I’m safe

because Tiger is fierce,

so we’re never afraid of attack.

We go to the jungle

some nights when we’re dreaming,

pacing the green forest floor,

if an animal thinks

he can eat us for dinner

Tiger frightens it off with his ROAR!

SUN, SEA AND SANDCASTLES - A-Z Challenge

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.

THE ROCK - A-Z CHALLENGE

I am late on parade today with my A-Z post, so it's a good thing I had it planned!

To those of us who live here, Tenerife is sometimes known affectionately as THE ROCK. and let's face it - there's an awful lot of rock about.
BUT when people say "Steady as a rock" they are using an inaccurate simile, as the inhabitants of my village discovered eighteen months ago.

Parque de la Reina has its own motorway access – No22 if you want to explore – but in November 2013 it was blocked by a ROCK FALL that just missed crushing a car and the young couple inside.

There is a banana plantation perched on top of the cutting and I suspect that decades of watering were responsible for bringing down the wall.

The Cabildo chopped back the rock and were part-way through building a RETAINING WALL when there was a second collapse – fortunately at night so no workmen were injured.
The road was closed for months.

ROYAL BRITISH LEGION

REMEMBRANCE DAY – the Tenerife branch of the RBL – sadly now closed due to the increasing age of its few active members and an increase in the amount of paperwork demanded by Head Office – hosted a REMEMBRANCE SERVICE at Westhaven Bay, Costa del Silencio, for many years. One year the crew of a British Royal Navy ship joined us - that was a day we shall never forget – and other guests have included Ricardo Melchior, President of the Tenerife Government.

These photos show how locals and visitors remember the fallen, Tenerife-style.

LAUNCHING A WREATH INTO THE ATLANTIC IN MEMORY OF THOSE LOST AT SEA

THE WREATH IS BIO-DEGRADABLE

AND AFTER THE PARTY WE FACED THE LONG PROCESS OF COLLECTING UP THE TINS AND COUNTING THE MONEY!