ROCKS - a (mostly) true story in one hundred words

ROCKS

They had hoped to be in before Christmas – until workmen digging the foundations hit bedrock. A perfect base for our extension walls, they thought, but Building Regulations were inflexible. They had to dig down deeper, extract the rock, and pour concrete. It seemed total madness, but rules are rules, even in Ireland.

Then it snowed, the foundation ditch became a moat, and the caravan toilet froze solid.

Finally spring arrived, building work recommenced, and their spirits lifted – they had a garden to design. It made sense to start with a rockery – one thing they weren’t short of was rocks.

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This is almost a true story. My daughter and her husband are in the throes of renovating a cottage in Ireland, and the first photograph could (almost) have been taken in their garden. The one on the left was.

Thanks to Connie Gayer for the photograph which Rochelle posted on her blog at  https://rochellewisoff.com/ - from whence, if you follow the Blue Frog link, you can read other stories that are more likely to be Fictional.

THE GUAZA STRIP

THE CABILDO have been up-grading the road through Guaza for over a year, taking the opportunity to put in better drains at the same time.
They did have the sense to finish the bypass first. This is unusual in Tenerife, where it is not unknown for roads to have their directionality changed overnight. If someone gets it wrong - also a not infrequent occurrence - all the traffic ends up in a bottleneck from which there is no legal escape, and the Policia have to sort it out.

Those businesses that somehow managed to survive the upheaval - the lack of any road at all, the cuts in electricity, water, telephone and internet access for often weeks at a time - now have a proper tarmac dual carriageway. There are more parking spaces in front of the shops, a 30K speed limit to allow cars to back out into the traffic, just enough room for a bus to get through if no-one double-parks and disappears for half an hour, and after weeks of slow work the gardeners have almost finished the centre strip.

There are palm trees and palm type shrubs, most of which survived being planted weeks before the watering system was installed under alternating stretches of brown and white rocks. The rocks are very pretty, and although they will make a superb home for cockroaches they should discourage dogs from using the area as a toilet and stick to the pavements they are accustomed to using.
Then after a few weeks of nothing, this week we see Cabildo workmen rolling the last, wider bit flat, hosing the edges clean, putting down a layer of black plastic and then....

installing artificial grass! Metres and metres of the stuff, held in place by more white rocks. How much does that cost? Aren't we in the middle of a financial crisis? No wonder people are asking which Councillor had a surplus of Astroturf. ....And bets are being taken on how long before it disappears one night.

SUN.SEA & S.....?

SUN, SEA (and another S that I can’t remember at my age) are why the average tourist comes to Tenerife. The sun can be relied upon to shine almost every day, and even a winter holiday can result in a tan to cause envy among those left at home. In high SUMMER it’s too damned hot, which the Tourist Board won’t tell you, and out electricity bill shoots up because we’ve got the ceiling fans on day and night. Especially at night, when even naked you’re too hot to SLEEP.

Our apartment block SHARES a pool with the next block – 160 apartments in all – and in the two and a half months of SCHOOL holidays the noise level is such that it seems every child is in the pool. When the temperatures reach 40+ there will also be groups of women chatting in the SHALLOW end, up to their SHOULDERS in water, and I have seen mothers holding tiny babies in the pool for a while to cool them down before putting them to bed.

My theory is that if the air temp is greater than 37◦F then your body overheats enough to make you SICK – mine does, anyway. If I was rich I would SPEND July, August and September in England, rain and all.

This of course is what SWALLOWS do – they fly SOUTH for the winter. I’m not talking about the birds, but the people. Some own apartments or villas, but many more rent for a few months at long-term rates, like we did when we first arrived here. 

            

They bring their social life with them, meeting the same friends every year, playing bridge, eating out, line-dancing. Local groups such as the Lions actually time their dinner dances and other social events to coincide with the Swallows.

                           

SEA For more than half the year the sea is packed with people SWIMMING. Local children are taught to swim before they’re out of nappies – very sensible on an island – and by the end of summer every child is a healthy brown. On Las Galletas beach I have seen grandparents being helped into the sea, where the waves take the weight off STIFF hips and bodies remember their younger days. There are also boys (oddly enough, never girls) on SURF-BOARDS riding the breakers – locals who know where the rocks are – this is not a forgiving coast for the uninitiated.       

You can take boat trips to see the whales and dolphins or go fishing in the deep waters that surround the islands. There are ferries to other islands – it’s less than an hour to La Gomera, our nearest neighbour. And the SUNSETS over the sea are SPECTACULAR when you can SIT on a terrace or promenade, SIPPING a SUN-DOWNER.

Some people would choose SANGRIA, a refreshing drink and very pretty with its fruit and mint leaves in a frosted jug clinking with ice cubes. It’s not to my taste and, like punch, you never know what’s in it. If I get drunk I think it should be my fault, not a waiter’s.

SCULPTURE or STATUE? Is it a sculpture if it’s been poured into a mould? Can it be a statue if it’s not a person? I don’t know, but this creation has appeared in the fancy new park that’s being built in our village. No doubt as SOON as the gates are officially opened it will be SPRAYED with graffiti. Cynical? Moi? Perish the thought!

ROCKS, RUINS & RBL

RUINED buildings have always fascinated me – they leave so much to the imagination. The holes in a castle wall where joists used to be conjure up images of floors and furniture, spiral stairs make me wonder how servants carried trays of food up to their masters. The skeleton of a shed in a French field was so striking that I took several photos and wrote it into a novel.

Until a firm of speculative builders scraped the surface from the former agricultural land around us, I could explore ROUGH-WALLED terraces and imagine the fields filled with potatoes or cabbages. There was a one-room house too – a ROOF-BEAM leaning against one wall and a tangle of herbs that was once a kitchen garden.

Overlooking the nearest banana plantation is a ROW of workers’ cottages, roofs and doors long gone and walls collapsed. Older locals remember when they were occupied by agricultural workers. If someone had bought them before the roofs fell in they could have made a lovely home with a grand view of the sea.

The builder’s ROADS are now as abandoned as those fields were, and are already going back to nature – I wonder what future generations will make of them?

ROUNDABOUTS

Tenerife has only had roundabouts for a few years. Before that, if you wanted to turn left you turned RIGHT, drove ROUND an island, and ended up having to cross traffic from both directions. The roads weren’t wide enough for feeder lanes.

Then the government discovered roundabouts and put them everywhere. Drivers who had lived on the island all their lives didn’t know what they were or how to use them. Each roundabout was soon strewn with glass, the number of cars with bashed-in doors increased, articles appeared in newspapers, and heated arguments RAGED in every café and bar. The Cabildo sent every household a letter explaining, with diagrams, how to drive round a roundabout. It appeared to have been written by someone who had only READ the theory.

And those striped triangular patches on the approach roads – the cross-hatching that indicates “Do not drive on this bit” – are considered a great place to park if you need to visit a nearby shop.

Things have settled down now, but any sensible driver avoids what the Brits call “The Magic Roundabout” in Los Cristianos. It has two lanes, which are always a RECIPE for disaster here - the local drivers regard the inner circle as an overtaking opportunity for those in a hurry. If you take the inside lane to turn left you could be stuck there all day, and if you opt for the outer circle you can practically guarantee that someone will carve you up by shooting across your bows to turn right.

And mini roundabouts? I saw a van yesterday approaching a mini-roundabout in Guaza from the wrong angle. Sensing danger, I waited. White van man overshot his left turn, slammed on his brakes, REVERSED practically onto my bonnet, and shot off up the road he’d been aiming for. You need to keep your wits about you, driving in Tenerife.

ROCKS

I had never really thought about rocks until we came to Tenerife, and was surprised by the different colours, textures and formations. Simply driving along the motorway, where the rock has been chipped away for cuttings, is a mobile lesson in how the layers of lava overlaid each other when the island was formed. There is rock so porous that bees can build hives in it, and rock so hard that a chipped edge is like a knife. There is blue rock and green rock, black and white rock layered like a cake, brown and red, yellow and orange, terracotta and cream.

No wonder my series of fantasy books is called “Living Rock”.

ROYAL BRITISH LEGION

We transferred our membership to the Tenerife branch of the Royal British Legion soon after we arrived. There were about 25 members then and, due to what is euphemistically called “natural wastage” we now number 17 – the youngsters don’t join, which is a shame.

For the past 5 years we have won the Noel Rogers Trophy for the overseas branch that raises the most Poppy Appeal money per member. Last year we got €11,000 and change – around €500 per member – our nearest rivals raised €44. Big is not always better! The photo was taken at Westhaven Bay in Costa del Silencio, where we hold our service, with (L-R) the British Ambassador to Spain, the OH who is Chairman. Paul our Vice-Chairman and Welfare Officer and his wife, and the previous Canary Islands Consul.

We exist mainly to deal with any welfare cases that come our way, which have ranged from the widow of an RAF pilot not being able to afford a new fridge to a young serviceman and his wife severely injured in a car accident and stuck in hospital for months. We also have a Remembrance Service each year, in the open air overlooking the sea, which is attended by about 350 people, some of whom book their annual holiday around that date. One year the crew of a Royal Navy vessel, in Santa Cruz on its way home from the Antarctic, joined us. That was a particularly emotional morning, the young sailors’ voices loud in the hymns and even louder later at the barbecue with karaoke!