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.

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.

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!

GRANDSONS & GOATS

There have been a lot of photos of my GRANDSONS on Facebook this week. Their other GRANDMOTHER is visiting from Slovakia, so my daughter-in-law is camera-happy. So are the boys, judging by their happy GRINS. Me - jealous? Don't even GO there!

Las GALLETAS. The name means “The Biscuits”(!) and it is the fishing village where we lived when we first settled in Tenerife. We rented a tiny one-bedroom apartment overlooking some waste GROUND. On Sundays we had a GRANDSTAND view as local men and boys raced their off-road motos (motorbikes) and on Mondays we would wipe and mop up all the dust.

We had no TV, but the beach was round the corner, the shops 5 minutes’ walk, and we could sit at Amadeo’s bar with a GLASS of vino tinto to watch the sunset. One evening the western sky darkened unusually quickly, and we watched in amazement, with hands protecting our drinks, as millions of huge dragonflies flew in on the wind from Africa. Many of them landed on the wall nearby, clearly exhausted, poor things, and their colours were GORGEOUS.

Our next door neighbours were Indians. One hot day their door was open and such a wonderful smell wafted out that I commented on it. Ten minutes later the two elder children knocked on our door and GAVE us a plate of food! When we returned the plate, with GRATEFUL thanks, we were invited in and shown round. In that two-bedroom apartment, with parents and three children, there was a whole room lined with tall shelves for their household GODS – awesome devotion.

LA GOMERA. Sometimes when we’re driving into Los Cristianos we can see this island so clearly it looks as if you could swim across. At other times it is so shrouded in cloud that it disappears completely – La Isla Magica. It’s well worth the ferry ride. It’s shaped like a dried and shrunken starfish, with deep barrancos divided by steep lava flows, but the local taxi- and bus-drivers are accustomed to the character-forming roads and the scenery is spectacular. GREENERY spills down from the laurel forest on its flat crown, farms cling to slopes as steep as staircases, every path is a series of steps, and the natural domestic animals to keep there are GOATS. They even have their own language of whistles –sifle – which can communicate from one hill to another such simple things as "Dinner's ready" or "I'm going for a drink with the lads.".

I’m GENERALLY a GOOD-NATURED GIRL, as anyone will tell you (if they know what’s GOOD for them!) but some things really GET my GOAT.

People whose idea of conversation is to talk exclusively about themselves.

Drivers who zoom past hooting their horns because I’m keeping to the speed limit.

Ordering a GRILLED meal and having it arrive swimming in GREASE.

GREED – either personal or national – there’d be enough to go round if we were less selfish.

GADGETS that do things you can do quicker by hand.

And the word GENRE that wants to stick me – and you – in categories with fences.

GEOFFREY. My father, my brother and my children’s father were all called Geoffrey. Please share a moment of Gratitude for their lives – one life that was longer than average and the other two far too short.

GEE! GOLLY! GOSH! A day off tomorrow - what WILL I do with myself?

F-WORDS

 F-WORDS were FLYING round our apartment yesterday – the boiler packed up. FIVE years is FAIRLY average here with our water so FULL of cal. Nigel FITTED a new one, FURTHER up the wall so the OH won’t bang his head when he FILLS the washing machine – and we’re €180 worse off. “What F-word?” you ask. FIDDLESTICKS, naturally.

FIGURES – I checked my blog stats yesterday and FELL into a depression at how FEW hits I’ve had. But it’s early days, so thank you to my FAITHFUL FOLLOWERS!

FOOD - FRESH FISH is our FAVOURITE food to eat here (a very appropriate subject on Good FRIDAY) and we live on an island with more FISHERMEN than FARMERS. In the village near us there is a fish market – a dozen or so stalls that back onto the beach where the boats come in. On the terrace behind the stalls, seagulls wait by buckets for the offal to be thrown out, and on the pavement in FRONT we join housewives and restaurant owners to buy fish that was in the sea less than an hour ago. I bought some bonito once, and when the woman FILLETED it, the sardine that had been its last meal was still wriggling.

The best meat in Tenerife is pork – local, tender and FANTASTIC. When we FIRST arrived to live here the butcher didn’t understand my request for pork with the skin on, and gave me a carrier bag containing the skin FROM a whole pig. I shared it with FRIENDS, FROZE some more, and we FEASTED on crackling for months. Now the butcher is used to our strange FOREIGN ways and asks whether I want my pork “con o sin piel.”

FRUIT is another treat – oranges, lemons, mangoes, papayas, bananas and of course FIGS. I remember leaving a coffee bar one day and picking a handful of figs off a tree in the street. One of my mother’s Christmas treats was dried figs, which I can’t stand, but fresh ones still warm from the sun – that’s a different matter entirely.

And talking of food, I must not FORGET to mention my husband’s favourite – Papas Canarias – food of the gods. Small local potatoes cooked in their skins in salt water. The locals used to cook them in a bucket of seawater but now they use sea salt. Serve them with Mojo Verde – a green sauce made with olive oil and cilantro (fresh coriander).

FIRE The very word sends shivers down the spine, especially when we’ve had a drought as bad as the last twelve months. A spark can set off a FOREST FIRE that destroys acres in hours. A few years ago there was a devastating fire that reached one of Tenerife’s most beautiful places, Masca, which until recently was only accessible by goat track. The road isn’t much better now, and getting FIRE-FIGHTING equipment up there was a nightmare.

When the fire was FINALLY out there was a media appeal for help, so my daughter and I took some spare household goods and plants and went there. Our gifts were welcomed, and one man showed us his burnt-out home. It was awful - like a Dali painting – have you ever seen a melted television set? One can understand why it is a criminal offence here to chuck a FAG-END out of a car window.

But for FUN with the FAMILY and a real FESTIVE spirit you can’t beat an open fire, even in the tropics, and my son-in-law has built a FIREPLACE on his roof terrace.