RUBBISH - flash fiction

RUBBISH

Charlie was happiest when the only sound was the shriek of gulls fighting over fish guts, but Jed wanted a mechanical winch.

“Winches got no sense, boy,” Charlie said, “Can’t feel what’s in the net like hands can.”

“We’d catch more.”

“Don’t need more - we ain’t greedy like some folks.” Charlie picked rubbish from the net. “Got more respect for the sea, too.”

One day the net was too heavy even for their calloused hands.

“Bloody container dropped off a ship, I reckon,” Charlie cursed.

 Cutting the rope, they returned to shore, leaving their discarded net wrapped around a whale.

 --------------------------------------------------

The photograph, taken by Jan Wayne Fields, is the prompt this week for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by   https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/   I am particularly grateful for the prompt this week as I have written nothing else, due to a cataract operation last week that's left me a bit disorientated. I'll be fine when the other eye is done, which I hope can be soon!

Meanwhile, please leave me a comment  and browse the rest of my site before following the link on Rochelle's blog to read other 100 word stories.

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.

HIGH TIDE IN TENERIFE

The moon and strong winds have brought huge waves to Tenerife.
This was Las Galletas when I got there this morning - I had to go the long way round, and when I saw the seafront road it was obvious why it was closed. The sea had taken a great bite out of the beach and used it to pebble-dash the road, including a few cars that had been left in the danger-zone!

There were workmen sweeping beach off the promenade, too, though I suspect the next tide will undo all their good work 

- the young man in the red shirt seems to think they're wasting their time!

A sea that can throw head-sized rocks isn't going to be fazed by a pile of gritty sand.

And this was the sea at Los Cristianos.

We heard yesterday that a woman had been swept off a wall by a wave. Terrible news, but there will always be people who risk their lives to watch the power of Nature up close.

Anyone want to buy my apartment?  :D

Actually this isn't a joke - our apartment is on the market .

We live in Parque de la Reina, which is a quiet residential village with its own access to the motorway 5 minutes to the airport, 10 minutes to Los Cristianos, and if you click on the link at the top of this page you can take a virtual tour.

SEX, SUN, SEA & STORM

 – and now that I have your attention, ~I will start off with a taster from my novel Helter-Skelter – a description of the beginning of the STORM in 1935 that changes Albie’s future.

One night, after a blustery day earning a few shillings rolling barrels into the pub, Albie was woken by his window rattling in its frame. He got up to see the trees being blown practically horizontal and waves crashing clear over the promenade to batter the road. A dreadful moaning sound built up and up – he had never heard anything like it. He went downstairs to make sure all was secure, but George had beaten him to it and the kettle was already on the hob. Albie was about to take a cup up to Dot when she appeared in the kitchen, clutching her dressing-gown closed as it afraid the howling wind would snatch it away.

“A body can’t sleep with that racket going on, and I’ll feel safer downstairs.”

Would you go downstairs for a cuppa in these circumstances, or pull the covers over your head and pray?

SEX – we all know that this is one reason a lot of folk come to Tenerife - drinking SANGRIA in the SUN lying on the SAND beside the SEA tends to dull people’s perceptions and SENSE of discretion – but there are many more visitors who come for the SCENERY and the food, both of which are SIMPLY STUNNING.

STRELITZIA REGINAE – I took this photo on my walk yesterday – the SPANISH call it Estrelitsa, but they simply cannot pronounce any word that begins with an S without adding an E first!

We see holiday-makers clutching these flowers at the airport – I have never asked if they are actually allowed to take them on board, but I would imagine there are some airlines (naming no names) who would charge extra.

WAVES

Well - I did it - I took a video and downloaded it onto my blog - but I can't make it move when I go into preview. Never mind - this is the same view of Las Galletas I photographed in the sea-mist in April, but this time we have clear skies, a high tide and a strong wind - result - waves crashing on the rocks.
My OH went fishing here once with a friend - two elderly gentlemen perched precariously on rough rocks with a rod each - and a waves just like this one soaked them to the skin. They climbed down laughing to dry off in the sun outside the nearby cafe with a beer - and no, they didn't catch anything.

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!

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.

E FOR BRICK

As in A for ‘orses, B for mutton, C for yourself, Dee-fer- ential.

This is my attempt to apologise for yesterday’s Dismal blog. In my Defence I had spent an hour in the Dentist’s chair while he took a hammer and chisel to a temporary crown. He smiled and said “Demaciado bueno” (too good) – I presume he meant his glue!

Be that as it may, a light-hearted topic for E ELUDES me. E is the most used letter in the alphabet – EVEN my name, ELIZABETH, starts with an E - yet my mind is EMPTY of inspiration.

Today is the first of the EASTER holy days – Jueves Santo - no humour in that.

Then there’s EMBEZZLEMENT – a lot of that in local government here - EVEN less humorous.

Or ENERGY. I’m all in favour of the renewable kind, just lacking in any myself.

There’s been ENOUGH talk about the EURO without me adding my EIGHT-cents’ worth, and I’m sure you don’t want to hear about the time I got stuck in an ELEVATOR.

Ah – got it – ENTROPY. That wonderful musical duo Flanders and Swann (remember "Mud, mud, glorious mud"?) summed up the First Law of Thermodynamics in these words; “Heat don’t pass from a cooler to a hotter/ You can try it if you like but you’d far better notter.”

Definition No3 of Entropy in my Collins goes thus; “Lack of pattern or organization: disorder.” EXACTLY – my brain in a nutshell.

Meanwhile I’d better EXPLAIN my illuminated letter E. The island of EL HIERRO has quietened down after all the EXCITEMENT of the past few months. For those of you who are new to my blog, you might like to read my El Hierro page which I started last October, when the undersea volcano first made its presence felt.

I mention it again now because, although no longer front page news, the ECONOMY of the island is still reeling from the impact of the ERUPTION, and if you fancy an away-from-it-all holiday, you could do worse than ESCAPE to an island you can drive round in half a day.http://www.turismodecanarias.com/canary-islands-spain/tourism-office/el-hierro-island/

ESCAPING from the crowds to an isolated beach can be EXTRAORDINARILY difficult. These two ELDERLY EXPATS only found this little place last year, when our son and girlfriend came out determined to snorkel with turtles. A diver friend of ours said “Go to EL PUERTITO,” so we did.

EASY to find it is not and the road down the barranco twists like an EEL. There’s only one bar which charges EXTORTIONATE prices – ESPECIALLY if you’re obviously an EXTRANJERO – but the bay is EXQUISITE, there's a sandy beach, the houses pile on top of each other like a child’s toppled brick tower, and our young couple actually stroked a turtle. One word sums up their reaction – ECSTATIC!

BARS & BANANAS

BARS. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re the places to meet people, unless you’re into BOWLS or BADMINTON or BELLY-DANCING or can afford to join the BRITISH GAMES CLUB or play golf.

There is one English bar in our small town and four Spanish, so choosing which one to visit depends on which TV programme you want to avoid. BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT (hmm!) or The X Factor send us to a Spanish bar. BARCELONA playing Madrid is a good night to drink English and then shut ourselves indoors with the cat, away from the shouts and groans and the BANGS of fireworks.

 El BUHO is an odd place, frequented by a group of BULGARIAN deaf and dumb people. They came over here to sell novelty lighters in the tourist bars, which can’t earn them much as they live ten to an apartment, but presumably is an improvement on their former lives. Their language is silent, but the flickering of hands is strangely disturbing - my instinct is to ask them to keep the noise down, but one can hardly do that!

Strangely, I don’t find Spanish nearly as distracting, and often leave the OH at home while I repair to a coffee-bar - preferably overlooking the sea - to write in peace.

BASURA. At strategic points throughout the town there are wheelie BINS for basura (rubbish) and recycling bins for paper, glass and plastic. They are emptied every day. It’s a good system, much better than having a set of bins for every home that are only emptied once a fortnight, yet there are still people who complain at having to walk those extra few yards, and dump their rubbish wherever they please. There's a B word for them, but it escapes me for the moment!

BANANAS. One of those words that is difficult to stop spelling! The first time I flew into Tenerife, I looked down from the plane window and wondered what the huge sand-coloured areas were. Now I know they are covered banana plantations, and we eat the produce every day. Each banana plant produces one enormous red flower, and the petals curl back to reveal rows of tiny bananas. These grow until eventually there is a bunch of bananas it takes a strong man to lift. I once heard a disgruntled Englishman complain that they were too small. At 50c a kilo, eat two!

BEFORE I sign off for today, thank you to all those who looked at my blog, and especially those kind people who commented.

SUELTA/ RELEASE OF A TURTLE

A turtle released on my birthday!
We drove to El Puertito this morning to see a turtle released. Many are rescued from the sea, injured by propellers, tangled in discarded fishing nets or lines. Not all of them are as lucky as this fellow. There was a display board of graphic photographs beside the van that brought two turtles - look on my Facebook page to view the album.
We waited ages - this is Tenerife, after all, where the manana syndrome holds sway! There were children in the sea, and huge German sunbathers lying at the top of the slipway, oblivious both to the spectacle they made and the nuisance they were creating - the release route was that way..We watched in disbelief as a female TV photographer edged down the slipway with a huge camera to take shots of the waves. She was wearing a pair of those droopy-nappy pants, which aren't attractive at the best of times - filled with air by a stiff breeze, they were ludicrous. How she didn't lose her footing on the seaweed is a mystery. A child dropped her drink which rolled down the slipway and her Mum got a round of applause for rescuing the bottle from the waves. The tide was coming in and several people misjudged their dash round a path over the rocks and got soaked. The sun was hot and the spray was cool and it was my birthday and it was all part of the entertainment.
Then we had the speeches, and the expert said that the waves were too much for the turtles to manage. The bigger turtle would be released from a boat, and the smaller turtle would wait until a better day. We thought they were probably stressed enough after ages in the van and the interminable photo-calls, but presumably the experts know what they're doing.
So some divers waded off the beach with the lucky turtle in a plastic box and lifted it over the breakers. There were cries of "Ai mi madre!" from a hundred spectators as the box nearly overturned. Then one man swam backwards towing the box and waving for the cameras - his five minutes of fame - and they hauled it onto the platform at the rear of an orange dive-boat. A moment later, with no ceremony at all, they tipped the turtle into the sea.
Let's hope it makes it.

A holiday with a hint of danger.

From the local paper this morning -
El Hierro, the smallest of the Canary Islands, has had its red flag replaced by a yellow one.
La Restinga, a tiny fishing village on the south coast, woke up in October to discover a stain on the sea and dead fish floating - a volcano was erupting under the sea only two kilometers beyond their small harbour. (See my earlier posts.)
Since then the inhabitants have been struggling to survive with two of their main sources of income banned - fishing and dive-schools - and the tourists stopped coming.
Last month the Crown Prince of Spain made a well-reported visit, so show solidarity with the beleaguered herrenos and to demonstrate the lack of danger. Ticket and accommodation prices were cut to encourage tourism, and now the local government is publicizing volcanic holidays.
The massive stain over the eruption is fading and the tremors are now too faint to feel. At least for now. The volcano is only sleeping, not dead. A yellow flag is not an "All clear". Fishing and diving are still banned, so you won't be able to eat local-caught fish, but goat stew is delicious, wine is cheap, and you might - just might - experience an earthquake.
But that's the attraction - an island holiday in the sun, with a hint of danger. Maybe I'll go and see for myself.