ZUMO, ZOTE & ZANAHORIA - the end of the A-Z Challenge.

ZUMO in Spanish means juice.  I begin every day with a walk, a shower, and then breakfast, which always has to start with fruit juice. Oranges are around a euro a kilo and make the perfect base for whatever other fruits are in season.

Bananas - we bought some of these this morning at the local market -

mangoes,
strawberries,
or papayas.
This papaya tree is just up the road from where we live - I didn't know before I saw it on one of my morning walks that the fruit grows directly from the trunk.

Continuing my Spanish words theme - here's another one.

ZOTE is a Spanish word meaning dimwit, though whether that is a strong enough word to describe the people who deliberately set fires. Every summer our bomberos – most of whom are volunteers - have to fight to save homes, livestock and crops from total destruction. The fact that they eventually succeed, despite the difficult terrain of steep barrancos and inaccessible cliffs, is a tribute to their courage and training.

                

I love the way words can still surprise me, and here’sanother Z word I found.

ZURCIR = to darn. I presume this means mending socks but, like the expletive “Darn it!” in English, another version is used colloquially – “¡las zurcan!” means “to blazes with them!” which ties in nicely with the previous paragraph.

ZANAHORIAS  are carrots - this was one of the words it took me a long time to learn when we first arrived. 

This road sign in Las Galletas amuses me. The road is about ten metres long, one step from the beach, and the rest of the alphabet is nowhere to be seen - every other road in this small village is named for some dignitary with three names. Calles A to Z would have made life much easier!

AND FINALLY

Until a few years ago all cars registered in Tenerife had the prefix TF followed by four numbers and then letters indicating the year. 

This one is about 20 years old, but bang on target for my final A-Z post.

If you've stayed with me throughout the A-Z Challenge, thank you - your encouragement has kept me going - and if this is your first visit, welcome and feel free to browse.

 My experience of this year's blog-fest has been like the curate's egg, but thank you to the A-Z Team for their sterling work. I shall continue to visit as many blogs as I can, but I am flying to England on Friday for a fortnight with family and friends, so forgive me if I fail to respond immediately to any comments left on my blog. 

ZUMO & ZIMMER FRAMES

ZUMO = juice,  ZUMO DE NARANJA – orange juice. 

We had to be up early this morning to get our breakfast out of the way before a Skype conference with the RBL in Spain - the noise of my juicer in the background would have been too much!

 If you saw my P for Poppies Post on April 18^th you will know that we are members of the RBL Tenerife Branch. Our two Case Workers needed a training update, and Skype is a much better option than a trip to the Peninsula. It’s also cheap, whereas tickets and accommodation would make a large hole in the branch budget. Isn’t technology wonderful?

And to add ZEST to my day, Jean brought me a whole carrier-bag full of fresh lemons. More Lemon Curd? – (see my recipe page for how to make it.)

ZAP ZONE! A friend asked last night if we had ever eaten at the Atlantido Restaurante in Las Galletas. We had, but it’s gone now. ZAPPED by over-ZEALOUS bureaucracy. Demolished. RaZed to the beach. Another victim of the Spanish law PLAN DE COSTAS that says any building too near the sea must go.

Although the food was good and the view amaZing, it had probably been built illegally. 

The same cannot be said of some of the little cottages that this Draconian law has deemed unnecessary – those were people’s homes, built decades before the tin gods in Spain moved the goal-posts.
Look up "Tenerife village demolished" on Google images and weep.

ZIMMER FRAMES have you noticed you hardly ever see one these days? People go straight from walking sticks to those motoriZed wheelchairs that ZOOM along the pavements as if they own them, ZIPPING in and out of innocent pedestrians and mowing down small children. 

I thought these vehicles were supposed to be speed-restricted? I reckon some of them have been souped up.

ZENITH = above a trailer in an unofficial depot near us is this Z-car - it's been there a good while. Z at the end of its registration number means it’s about 25 years old. The owner must hold it very dear to go to these lengths to deter thieves.