Becoming an Ex-Pat 2 : Packing and Preparing

More responsibility – of the nicest kind!  Barbara Weibel of www.holeinthedonut.com very kindly included a post of mine on her Facebook page, where she is featuring travel bloggers around the world.  I’m really honored to be included in this along with some  bloggers who really are considered top-notch!   So, here I am, nervous again about what I should write!  However, I’ve been asked what happened next in my emigration saga – if you missed the first part it’s here – so here goes:

After years of half-hearted discussion and dreaming about this place or the other, we decided, in early 1987,  to immigrate to Tenerife.  One of the reasons we chose Tenerife was because of its climate.  Guy had been diagnosed with asthma a couple of months before the idea was mooted.  English doctors thought that in the dry, warm, Canarian climate he might improve, and they were right.  The asthma lay dormant for almost all of the time that Guy lived here.

Had we needed any confirmation that our decision was the right one, the English summer provided it in plenty.  That July was the wettest on record, and as I stood shivering in my winter coat in the doorway of McDonalds mid-July, after Austin’s farewell to his classmates, I didn’t have any doubts at all!

By that time all the angsting and planning, the preparation and the goodbyes were just about over.  We were a week away from boarding a plane which was going to take us 2,000 miles away to begin a new life.

My one wobble had happened a couple of weeks previously on another wet and windy night, as I lay in bed in the small apartment we had bought as backup, just in case the emigration turned out to be a disaster.  Most of our possessions had been collected from the house we had sold that day, and taken to a warehouse on the docks in Preston, awaiting our word that the paperwork was all done, and they could be shipped.  As the rain beat against the windows I fretted about whether my books, which I’d been collecting since schooldays, would arrive in Tenerife covered in mould, or whether clothes and linens would smell of damp and neglect.  There remained things to be taken care of and I needed this insomnia like a hole in the head.  I tried everything I knew to induce sleep, including some yoga exercises, and maybe it was those which brought enlightenment in the end.  The simple fact was that everything which was really, truly important in my life was under the same roof as me just then.  Other stuff, the stuff which was in packing cases on the docks, was just that – stuff.  Nice stuff, I was fond of much of it, but it was just stuff.  As soon as the truth of that sank into my brain I smiled, and slept.

It was a realization which was to stand me in good stead at other times in my life, and still does.  It was a moment I will never forget.  We pay lip service to these ideas, these gems of wisdom, and now we proclaim them on Facebook, and we retweet the Dalai Lama and Jack Canfield et al, but having proof   that comes from personal experience is a different matter.

But I’m a bit ahead of myself there.  Our decision to take a goodly portion of our worldly goods across Europe and over the other side wasn’t made lightly.  We talked about selling everything and truly starting anew plus the cost of replacing things verses the cost of taking our household goods with us.  The decision to import our stuff was made mainly on the basis of taking the kids’ toys.  We wanted to make the move as untraumatic as possible for them, and that they would have familiar things around I thought would help.  I also wanted to take my orthopaedic bed with me, suspecting that after all the moving activity my back problems might resurface, and my ex wanted to take his prized baby grand.  After that it was a no-brainer.  Once you’ve crammed those, and the extra clothes (er….yep – did seem to have rather a lot of them back then!), into a container, well, you might as well fill the thing.  We were offered two sizes and decided that we’d fill the smaller size and sell off the stuff which was left over.

It was the right decision for us.  That might not be true for everyone.  If I decide to transplant myself again the only things I will take will be my souvenirs from my children, plus some gifts from friends which have sentimental value.  Up to a year ago I used to say I would take my books and cds, but with Kindle and iPod now I don’t believe I would even do that.  It’s a different world.  Maybe more disposable, but maybe the disposability frees us too.

The majority of Brits I met here subsequently had sold up everything, and I admired that, but most of them also didn’t have kids, and I thought it important to keep things as normal as possible for them.  In the same circumstances I would do the same again.  Had they been children used to moving around more, then I most definitely wouldn’t, and that is probably a reflection of how living abroad has changed my outlook.

One word of caution – I’d been living here a couple of years when  a woman asked my advice about making the move.  Like everyone, she asked what I missed most.  I have a standard answer, which has never changed – Marks & Spencer.  I advised her to stock up on Marks & Sparks lingerie.  In Tenerife, at that time, undies were either very expensive or so cheap as to almost qualify as disposable, nothing like the combination of good value and prettiness M & S provided.  She followed my advice, and filled a couple of suitcases apparently.  After clearing out her local branch she and her husband loaded the possessions they were bringing into their estate car, including stacking the roof rack to capacity. Unfortunately for them, seduced by the thought of sunshine and warmth here, they forgot that driving from the English Midlands and across Spain to Cadiz they weren’t guaranteed such good weather. They had heavy rain all the way, resulting in some wonderfully rainbow-colored new undies which had been packed in those cases on the roof rack!

The best decision we made was to employ an experienced and trustworthy removal company.  We could have packed everything ourselves and then they would simply have collected it.   The estimates seemed outrageous, but it was worth every, single penny we paid, plus, this way if anything broke it was their responsibility, and we were insured against that.  We made enquiries, chose the one we deemed to have the best reputation, and on the given day they came and “export wrapped” everything that was going.  All my worries melted away as I watched them work, expertly bubble-wrapping fragile antique table legs, delicate crystal, and even the plastic toys, at what seemed like the speed of light.  By the end of the day they had everything carefully protected and loaded into the container, and the leftovers delivered to our little apartment.  We were almost good to go.

I’d gotten through a hugely hectic time.  The ex had come on ahead.  He was buying a business here, and so most of the organizing of the move and the disposal  of possessions had been down to me.  I’m a great list maker, I’ve even been known to make lists of lists (honestly, that’s not a joke)..….. so my advice is sit down with a nice glass of either that Scotch you may not be able to buy so often in the future, or a glass of the local plonk of your future land to get you in the mood, and make at least one list.

There is no way can I tell you everything that should be on your list, because it depends on where you are going, whether you’ve already got a job, whether you’re married/a couple with/without children, your age, any number of things.  Ours was something like this:

-          Sell house.

-          Buy small apartment (we thought we needed a back up in case it didn’t work out).

-          Sell businesses.

-          Cancel insurances (cars, house, businesses).

-          Sell cars.

-          Organize farewell party/parties.

-          Give notice to school and nursery.

-          Organize medical insurance cover appropriate for Spain.

-          Cancel telephone/newspapers/milk (first of those more complicated now, others easier!)

-         Arrange for mail to be forwarded

-         Pay all outstanding bills where possible & where not possible make arrangements to pay.

-          Call nearest Spanish consulate to sort out paperwork.

-          Re-organize bank accounts (to be changed to non-resident accounts at appropriate time.)

-          Sell items of furniture not being shipped or kept in apartment.

-          Organize insurance for apartment.

-          Purchase anything I knew I wouldn’t be able to buy here (not so much these days, but back then more than you might have thought)

-          Find good home for dog.

Note that last item?  That was a really hard one.  We had the biggest, softest Labrador in the world, and had I understood things better no way would I have left him behind.  I thought it was going to be much hotter here than it is, and I thought a dog used to plunging into ice cold lakes and rivers would suffer in the heat.  Wrong!  He would have adapted fine.  Not one of my better decisions in life.  Nowadays, dogs have their own “passports”, and so long as they are fit and healthy it’s a doddle to take them with you.  Vets are more accustomed to pets moving around the world than they used to be, and they have all the information you need.

For every one of those items you need to make a sub-list, and if you are immigrating to certain places you also need to check out the vaccinations etc you might need.  It all takes weeks and weeks of planning and organizing if you are leading a fairly normal life, with possessions, family and friends all needing attention.  The “organize farwell party/parties” for instance might have had a sub-list which looked like this:

• Send/phone invitations (and yet another sub-list of invitees of course).
• Ring restaurant and arrange date, and plan theme/decor.
• Arrange menu (check who’s veggie/vegan/lactose intolerant etc and make sure there are enough alternatives – ditto for kids’ menu and drinks)
• Arrange transport/accommodation for those who need it.
• Get birthday presents for Uncle Joe and Cousin Kate – there birthdays are in the first month after you’ve left and you won’t have time to shop and send them.
• Two days before confirm every detail with the restaurant.

Getting around to see everyone before you leave will be impossible.  So do consider throwing a party, or two, and invite them all.  If you can afford it, do it in a hotel or pub or restaurant (it doesn’t need to be as formal as I suggested above, that was for list-making purposes), because the last thing you will need at that stage is the preparation and clearing up after a party.  The hangover is optional.

So it came to pass that on the 28^th of July, the house sold, the businesses sold or in process of sale, insurances cancelled, having taken leave of friends and family, and our bolt-hole all locked up we and our thirteen pieces of luggage boarded a plane for Tenerife.  Yep, that was THIRTEEN pieces of luggage!  If it had been Ryanair back then we would have had to charter an entire plane just for us, but rules and regulations were much looser, and my only preoccupation was making sure that none of them went missing.

It had been hard work, but everything had gone more or less as it should.  I’d done all that, I’d worked  up to almost the last minute and my kids seemed to be happy about everything that was going on.  Although they were young, and possibly would have just gone along with anything we did, oblivious to the fact we were moving 2,000 miles, we talked to them a lot about it, making plans, talking about what it would be like.  I did this to the extent that weeks after we arrived Guy kept asking when we were going to Tenerife……I took that as a testament to how smoothly it went!

My life is so different now, life in general is so different now. I haven’t had one moment’s regret, nor one moment’s homesickness from the time I set foot on Spanish soil to now.  I cushioned myself against the possibility by bringing familiar things, but the person I am now wouldn’t need them anyway.  Emigrating changed me, put things in perspective and taught me that there are a thousand ways of looking at the same thing, a million even.  I would recommend it to anyone, but how you do it can only be decided by you.

Where I go to Carnival afterall

The good thing about the Los Cristianos Carnaval not being on Shrove Tuesday (as it should be to really qualify being described as a carnaval) is that it’s later and so the weather is invariably good. So it was yesterday, warm and sunny but not too hot. Perfect! And an opportunity to practice photography which is hard to pass up if you really have nothing better to do. Well, I did, but I went anyway – hang the ironing and the filing!

Of course, the Sunday Parade is the tip of the iceberg. There has been much singing and dancing and judging going on, so that the participants and winners can display their talents in the parade, and much sewing and painting and rehearsing too, not to mention designing some of the fabulous costumes you will see in the photos to follow. Designers, once recovered from this year´s efforts will already be dreaming up ideas for next year, as you can imagine. The details on some of these are ingenious and just breathtaking!

Murgas are musical groups, who perform what are best described as satirical songs, usually aimed at local or national politicians or events which are asking for some criticism, much like the comics of Comedy Central, really, well, the same kind of targets anyway. Their costumes are often very outlandish, other times just amusing, and there is a category for children’s groups too.

For me the group above really represent the spirit of Carnaval – they were having so much fun it was catching! But most people think of the Queen and her Ladies of Honor, and those fantastic costumes when they think of this fiesta. This year’s costumes were stunning. So glad I wasn’t a judge! There is an infant queen too, but she was having running repairs to her headgear at the time she passed by our spot, so I didn’t get a snap! The first picture is the Queen of the Carnival, and others of the runners-up.

The other image which sticks is of the comparsas, the dance troupes in their sexy outfits…..who all deserved medals for tripping along the streets of town in their high heels yesterday!

And some people are here just for the fun!

And other people just seem to find it a chore, mind you, this group was well towards the end of the Parade, so they’d been waiting around for some time by the time I snapped them……and they had a long way to go. It all slows down as you get nearer to the end, because the beginning becomes gridlocked as people get to the end of the route, and peel off in different directions.

These guys looked as if they could have gone on walking and clowning around all night though!

As the last float passed we walked up with the stragglers towards the fairground and that gridlock. This guy jumped onto the rail of his float and serenaded the crowd with “Chicharrero de Corazón”, the anthem of the carnival goers.

“Chicharrero, chicharrero,
chicharrero de corazón.
Salta a la calle y dale al tambor
que el carnaval ya empezó.”

which means, more or less:

“Chicharrero, chicharrero,
chicharrero of my heart.
Pour into the streets and pick up the drum,
the carnival has already started”

A Chicharrero/a is a local word for a native of Tenerife, and for sure at Carnival time you kind of wish that’s what you were.  I don’t take back what I said before, nothing will be the same as actually taking part, but this year the town did itself proud, and the fun was infectious!  We headed off for hot dogs and beer, and churros and chocolate …….. and I’m pleased to report they were so enjoyable I don’t feel in the least bit guilty today!

Carnaval : Is it Better Late or Never?

It’s Lent now.  Carnavals the world over are done and dusted.  Costumes are stored away, and the Lenten fasting has begun (Carnaval is supposed the time to be  using up  the fats and goodies before Lent).  Or has it?

Not in Los Cristianos it hasn’t.  The fun only began a few days back.  The travelling fair, of course, was way too busy up in Santa Cruz, at the Carnaval described by some as second only to Rio de Janeiro’s, to have been here for Shrove Tuesday, but last weekend it began to arrive, and the town was buzzing with preparations.

The truth is that many people, having exhausted themselves up in Santa Cruz over the weeks of the “real” carnaval, can’t be bothered with the local one.  I’ve been told frequently over the years that this Carnaval is just for the tourists and the children.  It certainly seems to be smaller than it used to be.  They changed the route some years back, so that the procession is now over with more quickly, and doesn’t weave through the heart of town, which detracts from it somehow.

I had to go to Los Cristianos a couple of times during the week (It’s a place I do my best to avoid these days. My favorite way to describe it is to say that it sold its soul. To compare how it was when I first arrived and how it is now is a whole other post), so it was a quick dash, because the parking is nigh impossible when the fair’s in town, and the car parks are prohibitively expensive for my financial situation. Even so, I couldn’t resist taking a few snaps.

Fairgrounds, even when they are in the course of being erected, fascinate me. They are so full of color.  To be sure it’s the screams and laughter, and the smell of hotdogs and churros which complete the picture, but with a sky so clear and a mountain backdrop like this, the vibrancy is there even at this stage.

The fair takes over a large site on the edge of town, which one day will be built on, and where it will go after that heaven only knows.  You have to wonder if the day of the travelling fair is past, as towns expand, and these vacant lots and spaces are gobbled up by developments.  It takes days to get everything up and running.  You can see the difference between the first photo and the next, two, which were taken about 3 days apart, from the second floor of an apartment/commercial complex.  Given that the festivities go on into the wee, small hours for the best part of a week, I can’t begin to imagine how residents sleep at night.

Around the corner kiosks were arriving and lining up in the street, which is closed to traffic for the duration.

“Duck” shoots and candy floss, baked potatoes, bars and bingo will echo and waft their ways through the night as the celebrations gather momentum.  At the end of the street is a stage, where bands will salsa for the nightly verbenas, and folk can dance off the beer and wine.  This Carnaval isn’t so much about dressing up as the bigger ones in the north, but it will not lack merriment.  A few yards further on, outside the Cultural Center, is another stage, where the Queen of the Carnaval will be chosen. If you’re here on vacation, for sure, you won’t be disappointed. Despite it being in this tourist resort, it is still very much a local event, and not aimed directly at foreigners. It’s authentic.

As you can see from the picture on the left, there are other residential blocks cheek by jowl with what is really an outdoor disco. I imagine that the only way to deal with it if you live so close is to join in!

Me, I haven’t bother too much with Carnaval for a long time now. I wrote about why here. It is, basically, that after that experience nothing can top it. You have to know when something’s time is past because going back can be very disappointing. Still, that was as a participant, and standing on the sidelines as a spectator could never cut it, but in my “new incarnation” (**tongue in cheek there**, people) as a blogger maybe I will see things from a different perspective, and so inshall’ah I shall be standing on the sidelines tomorrow for the big parade…….and I can’t help wondering what photos from the top of this would look like!

Trying to Live up to Expectations

Wow, but it was a thrill seeing my blog on the Freshly Pressed, front page of WordPress, but, after the happy dance was over, I got to fretting – what should I write next? How could I “live up to” the post which earned that distinction? So is it true that numbers of random strangers read my ramblings? Do I have a responsibility to them now to produce something similar to that post, or can I meander off chunnering on about the events in the Middle East or the state of Canarian education?

As you can see, I wimped out, and posted photos.  I would probably have done that anyway.  The weekend’s full moon was spectacular and a global event and a test (failed, clearly, in execution if not in composition) of my newly-acquired photographic skills.

The thing is, I’m not entirely sure where this blog is going, it’s a bit of a runaway train, and of course, I don’t want it to end up being a wreck.  It’s evolved, and it’s taken on a life of its own to some extent.  I often find myself sitting down to write one thing and ending up posting something entirely different – like now.

My life is, like Shirley Valentine’s, very ordinary at the moment, though I appreciate that its setting is extra-ordinary to many people. So I sit and wonder, having started up this train, what on earth I can write about.  It certainly doesn’t snow here every day, and I don’t go up into the mountains every day either, and yet I can see where the mundane for me might be something different for someone else, and so I ramble on.

I’m lucky that this ordinariness includes moments like today’s lunch of tapas including a salpicón de marisco (a mixture of prawns, mussels, crabsticks, peppers and onions in a light vinaigrette dressing), pimientos de padrón (small, green peppers, fried in olive oil until they are about to crisp and liberally sprinkled with salt) and churros de pescado (battered and fried chunks of white fish) washed down with chilled white wine, followed by the coffee I have christened the super barraquito, and all consumed under a sky and next to an ocean so blue that they defy description.

I’m lucky that a trip to sort out car taxes led to a breakfast of milky coffee and a slice of moist tortilla española under shady trees in a street cafe where the early morning breeze was balmy enough to be wearing only cotton cargoes and a T-shirt.

I’m lucky that driving to a class yesterday the road wound me through hills and vineyards for a while.

And I’m lucky that most days I can forget the frazzled traffic on the autopista and take the long way home, just so I can take in this view.

I’m fond of saying that everywhere is interesting, that you can find the interest and the beauty even in the midst of the ugly, and I firmly believe that. I also would prefer to be in any number of places rather than here, places I know and love more, and places I have yet to see that are calling me, sometimes so strongly I want to stamp my feet like a child and sulk that I can’t go right now.  Yet, if I have to be stuck somewhere I have to admit that this ain’t half bad.  The climate is nigh perfect; the landscapes, which range from lush to spectacular are unequalled; there are historical towns and cities, and there are modern resorts; there are fresh foods including “mango and papaya you can pick right off the tree”. (Okaaaaay hands up if you know which song in which musical that came from!); and there are wines, there are fruity reds and there are chilled,  floral whites which slide down so easily on a warm day like today.

In short, I suppose, I am counting my blessings, or some of them………for now.

Spring Moonrise

In common with thousands of people the world over (and most of them members of Flickr it seems) last night at sunset found me scanning the horizon for the “super moon”.  Having seen some spectacular moons here I was expecting something really stunning as I paced the shoreline, and poked about a bit in rock pools to pass the time.  A random, wet dog befriended me for a while, and I watched a couple of guys messing about in the ocean, one with a boogie board and the other with a surf board and a paddle.  It all seemed a bit chilly to me.  I thought of jogging a bit, like other folk on the beach, the moon seemed to be a bit on the late side.

When I spotted it I realized it had had to rise out of some cloud cover on the horizon, and it was already a pale, scarlet orb, hanging on the skyline.  It was pretty.  I’ve never seen the moon just that color before, and the setting was magical, over the steely ocean and the gentle waves running at the shore, but it wasn’t nearly as huge as I’d expected.  I’ve seen the moon here on occasion rise over a mountain as if it was bearing down on planet earth, and once I saw it immense and pure silver, casting a path almost to my doorstep.  So this one was, on my scale, not so impressive, but, then again, not so bad for not so impressive is it!

Not great photos I know.  No excuses, my stupidity.  But a nice memory anyway…..and the very best thing is that I only had to walk for two minutes to get to the beach :=)

Subtropical Snow

There’s no doubt about it, the sight of snow on the mountaintops whilst you’re strolling along a sunny, palm-lined street, or even floating in the ocean is almost surreal, and  it still gives me a thrill.  I was both born and bred in a flat and damp English landscape, and the vista from my roof terrace yesterday morning was so very different from those lingering winter memories! I just had to get up there!

So I seized the chance to take some time off to take a closer look. A few weeks back when it snowed, I wasn’t able to get up into the mountains for 3 days, and by that time much of the snow had melted away. It was cold too, with a keen windchill factor. Yesterday, however, was different, it was only 24 hours since the last snow had fallen, and it was a morning of halcyon purity, with a sapphire  sky straight out of a glossy travel magazine to offset the shimmering white,  and bone-warming sunshine.

I was stoked, as my sons would say, to be up in the mountains again. The drive was easy, through the first stirrings of spring; some lingering almond blossoms, a few adventurous California poppies and evident, fresh, green growth on the pines. When you drive up from the Vilaflor road it’s a mellow ride, taking you to another season, through those first glimpses of springtime, into pine forests and snow-lined roads, then into the barren rockery on the outskirts of the crater, until El Teide rises before you, lord of all he surveys, and in his winter coat, more awe-inspiring and imposing than ever. If you live in the north, the omnipresence of  Teide is perhaps not so much of a surprise when you arrive, but from the southern coast he rises tall but distant, and arriving you marvel at his domination of the scene.

Traffic was light enough, though it was obvious that locals as well as tourists were heading upwards to admire the winter landscape.  It’s not uncommon, it snows up here most years, but it doesn’t last long under the sun’s fierce glow, and there isn’t always chance to come see it, nor mornings like this to see it at its most breathtaking.  I overheard people talking about taking their kids out of school for the outing.  By weekend when they have no school it will mostly be melted away.

At the first  stop I looked back, and could see that mountain mists were following us. We must have been driving just ahead of them as they wound through the trees and rocks, and now they were beginning to finger their way across the crater, but for the meantime we were well ahead, and the road in front was clear and quiet enough.

The thing which struck me about this depth of snow cover was that it highlighted the ebbs and flows of lava, so that you could see how it had inched its way down the mountains, and where and how, at some point, it had halted, sometimes producing lacey effects, like festooned curtains, with the weird shapes and boulders, randomly spewed out from the earth, stark against the white.

Drawing level with the parador, we turned into the viewing area opposite, where the vista is unfailingly jaw-dropping in any kind of weather or time of day, but it was chock-a-block with cars, buses and tourists. I have nothing against them. We need them – just not in my photos! So it was back into the car. I wanted to see what the view was like from where I taken these photos a few weeks back. However, it wasn’t to be. Just past the cable car the road was still closed off. I learned later that roads from La Orotava in the north, and la Esperanza just above La Laguna were still closed. We’d only seen one snow plough on our journey, and though there had been some light rockfalls, the road had seemed quite safe, but as always here, life on the other side of the mountain is a different story, so we turned back, to see the mist now approaching fast, an over-powering, immense wall of dense white, shifting shape as it flowed over hilltops and crater. We took the road down to the west coast and Chio, partly because it’s wider with smoother bends than the Vilaflor road, and partly for the change, Mother Nature and the Enviromental Service having spoiled my plans.

The lava beds through which this road winds are sombre black and rich brown, contrasting with the snow, and resilient to whatever kind of weather Nature hurls at them, be it a temperature of 5ºC or searing heat in August. We’d lost the sun’s warmth to that mist now, and the day was chilling fast.

Stopping to try to capture the diversity of landscape between the snow covered forest floor and the sight of the island of La Gomera seemingly floating on that sub-tropical ocean (It didn’t turn out that well. The camera doesn’t see what the eye does – or is it time to try out HDR I mused – that stain of a darker blue in the top right is La Gomera), I turned around to see, on the other side of the road, a bleak and colorless scene, as the clouds bore down on us. Thank goodness this was a drive and not a hike, though hiking in those conditions wouldn’t have fazed me at one time! But I’d seen the desolate scenes on morning tv the day before, and I hadn’t expected to be able to walk very far, so I wasn’t entirley euqipped, plus lunch was calling too!

There was even less traffic on this road, and as we descended and, as the temperature rose, the road was adorned for springtime again.  These bonnie flowers are lotus campylocladus, and were so prolific in places that they carpeted the floor of the forest which was getting sparser as we drove down.  By now, however, the light had gone, despite heading west, it was too gloomy to get a decent snap.

And so we returned to the coast, casting aside layers of clothing until the normal jeans and T-shirt remained, and marvelling at how we’d seen at least three out of four seasons in something short of one day. I know I keep saying it, but diversity is what keeps me here. At the end of the day, this is an island, it’s small, there are constrictions which come with that, however beautiful it might be, but it does feed my need for variety very well.

How to Play the Waiting Game in Tenerife

You might have noticed that this blog has been light on places visited and events attended of late.  It’s because I’ve been a bit preoccupied one way or another, but more of that another time. For now, just let me say, that there has been a lot of waiting around in recent weeks, for one reason or another, a lot.  It’s not unusual here.

People from the north of planet earth generally curse or moan about the delays and queues which are, simply,  part of every day life here.  You have to adopt the right attitude, the way of life, the refusual to get stressed, and a belief in tomorrow, usually associated with warm climates to take them in your stride.  It isn’t exactly the same thing as procrastination, but it’s a close relative.  It is the almost-identical twin to the mañana syndrome.  Really you have to know, not so much how to kill time, as how to use it.

Living here has taught me that how you deal with the delays and waiting is key to one’s mental health.  There is no point whatsoever in fighting the syndrome, although I did have a minor skirmish, as you will see in a minute.  There are ways you can handle it, for instance earlier this week, I had to go to the dentist:

A couple of weeks ago I had an extraction, and Wednesday’s appointment was only to check that all was healing as it should, before reconstruction begins in another couple of weeks – a five minute session then.  I was prepared for an hour’s wait because the dentist always runs an hour behind, and I can understand the reasons, my extraction having taken twice as long as expected the other week.  For this, and any other unexpected delays I ALWAYS carry a book, sometimes two, or sometimes a favorite magazine as well.  I have a book in my car too, just in case I forget to put one in my bag.  Reading is one of my passions, so any time to do a bit extra is one of life’s bonuses.  Sure, there are often piles of magazines in waiting rooms, but better to be reading something in which I am interested.  I read half of Hemingway’s “Dangerous Summer” the last time I went to the dentist.  This was when I had the skirmish, though. The first hour passed, and I wasn’t surprised or even midly irritated; an hour quarter and I was beginning to get fidgety; an hour and a half and my posterior was getting numb.  In the end it was an hour and forty minutes.  Wouldn’t it have been better had the receptionist told me that was over an hour and half to wait?  I could have been in the café downstairs enjoying coffee with my book, and have taken a walk when my circulation began to slow up.  The dentist seemed to agree with me when I mentioned it, but hey, imagine here **exaggerated shrugging of shoulders**, next time I’ll take a thicker book, just in case.

The other thing I’ve always carried with me is a camera (yes, I do have BIG bags!), even before I had the canon, my point-and-shoot was always in pocket or bag.  Now it’s even better.  So when I arrived at the real estate office to pay my rent Tuesday, a sign on the door saying “Back in 15 minutes” made me smile…..time to wander over to the harbor and see if the high seas were producing waves worth snapping. You see, 15 minutes here doesn’t mean, exactly, well,  15 minutes, it just means “I won’t be long”, meaning probably something under an hour or so.  Time here is nothing if not elastic and almost fluid.  In this case, ample time to get an ice cream (my latest flavor discovery – papaya, tasting just like creamy, frozen papaya – yum – but no pix, it melts too fast!), stroll over to the harbor and take some snaps.

I’ve passed an enjoyable half hour savoring a new taste and being a bit creative, whilst the sour-faced, elderly couple sitting on the bench outside the real estate office, are still there, letting life pass them by.  Maybe I’m wrong, maybe they were meditating.  The thing is to make the most of unscheduled snatches of free time.

Another day, returning to the same office, same sign, I rang to get an estimate on the time (thank the lord for cellphones), another “15 minutes”, so I repaired to the ice cream parlor next door (yes, AGAIN! – lord, what did I do to deserve this ?!) for hot chocolate……and a revelation – this was the creamiest, richest, most delicious hot chocolate evUH.  Flavored with cinnamon and orange, steaming hot, like silk on the throat and nectar on the tongue.   I wanted to go on drinking forever.  You see, sometimes when we are not rushing from place to place, appointment to appointment, office to supermarket to post office to gas station to home, we have time to experiment a little and discover new stuff  - which is one of life’s greatest pleasures :=)

Taking the guagua (pronounced wow-wa and meaning bus – I just put that in because I like to say it) to Santa Cruz can be a frustrating experience ……  if you allow it to be.  You’re almost certain to just miss a bus, however carefully you time your arrival at the estación de guaguas.  Plus, doing a repeat journey frequently means you know the scenery like the back of your hand, so another good time to bring out the books.  In addition to books, however, I now have a brand new iPod and all the music I could ever want to listen too at the touch of a finger…….. cannot imagine how I survived my teens without one!  I’m learning about playlists, and as soon as I’ve finished “music to walk/run to”, “music to read to” will be next.  Some pleasant, light tunes which don’t distract from the plots I think. I’m not totally technically-challenged, but not far off, and this new addition (Christmas present from my sons) to my collection of gadgets is another new discovery to savour!

I can see that the iPod will have other advantages too, it will be easier to block out the endless, inane chatter of folks whose way of dealing with a queue is either to take a family member to gossip with at the tops of their voices (the prefered method here), or pester the nearest person (me) with their boring smalltalk…..which usually begins with a moan about the queue……whoa – easy there with your negative energy, go dump it on someone else….and leave me to enjoy Bruce or Eric!

So those are my three ways of dealing with delays.  I really don’t mind them, and it’s because a) I expect them and b) I’m prepared.  I’ve been known to do gentle yoga and exercise techniques too.  In fact, I look on these delays, whether it’s the post office, the bank, the dole queue or a traffic jam as slivers of leisure time, to be enjoyed rather than letting them wind me up.  So whilst everyone else is fretting and whinging tomorrow, when I have to spend a minimum of two and half hours up at the hospital waiting around for X-rays, I will be in my own, private pleasure zone :=)

It goes without saying that a long journey often requires all of these distractions too.  Anyone got any other tips for dealing with waiting or boredom?

Becoming an Ex-Pat: Stage One: Making the Decision

I suppose that we all emigrate for different reasons, to get away from something or someone, to make a new start, curiosity, the travel bug, for a better life, for a healthier life, because our company sent us abroad,  or just on impulse.  For me it was a combination of several of those things.

We’d been talking about emigrating, kind of half-heartedly, forever it seemed.  Every vacation renewed enthusiasm, but the dreams got buried under the pressures of the daily grind once we were home. In the end, it was an impulsive suggestion on the part of my then-partner, and a heartfelt “yes,” and a mental punching of the air from me when he broached the subject, even though I’d never been to Tenerife…….I would have gone just about anywhere for the experience, the only proviso being that there would be a decent education for the kids, who were 5 and 3 then.

Looking back now, just coming up to 24 years of living here, I can see that there were stages in arriving at where I am at right now.  I don’t know that it’s the same for everyone.

Stage One starts even before you leave – making the decision.  Ours was spontaneous in the end, even though the idea of emigrating wasn’t, and it probably isn’t the right way for most people to go about it.   Even before you consider where you’d like to be living a year from now, you should think about whether you’re okay about leaving behind family, friends, possessions and places, and consign all the memories attached to them to the filing cabinet in your brain marked “archive”. Observing couples over the years, convinces me that if you are in a relationship you both need to be committed to the idea, open to new ideas and experiences, and aware of the pressure.

You both need to be aware that you are going to spend time in a kind of no man’s land, where you are neither vacationer nor local, and where even tracking down a bag of self-raising flour in the supermarket may present a challenge you’re not used to.  I vividly remember what was probably my third or fourth visit to a supermarket, silent tears rolling down my cheeks, frustrated both by my inability to understand labels, and by the fact that many products I took for granted weren’t available here (and some still aren’t)……said supermarket became my favorite, and I always knew I was home after a time away, when I came back to the friendly smiles and chats with the staff.

Your choice, if not decided for you by work, is likely to be somewhere you’ve visited on vacation or for work, so you may know your way around a bit, but be aware that there is a big difference between being on vacation somewhere, and actually living a normal life there, especially if you are coming to somewhere like the Canary Islands or the South of Spain, i.e. popular tourist destinations.  As the saying goes, if I had a euro for every person I’ve met here who came with the idea that the streets were paved with gold, and he/she would be spending their days lying on the beach I would definitely be rich.  Your expectations need to be realistic.  Yes, for my money, leisure time is very pleasurable here, made easier by the constant sunshine and warm breezes, but unless you’ve won the lottery (and I’ve also seen winners come and blow their entire fortune) you’ll need to work.  Why would you think you need to put in less hours than you would in Manchester or Solihull, Newark or Detroit?

If you don’t have work to go to, then check out the job prospects very, very carefully before you go, that goes without saying, after that, everybody has their own priorities in life, but here are some things to consider:

• If English is not the first language of the country, and you don’t already speak Spanish/French/Mandarin/Whatever, how realistic is it to expect to learn a new language?  Do you already have a second language?  Have you learned foreign languages in school?  If you’ve done other languages you’ll almost certainly find it easier to pick up a third.  There are places, and this island is one, where you can get by for years without speaking the local language (and believe me, here, there are lots of people who don’t speak a word of Spanish even though they’ve lived here for 20 years!), but it narrows your job prospects, restricts your social life, and at the end of the day, what is the point of living in a foreign country if you are not going to fully appreciate the experience?  I’m ashamed that I don’t speak Spanish as fluently as I should, but I have enough to listen to the local news, understand events I go to, and carry on conversations.  If I couldn’t do those things I would be living in my own little vacuum, and not getting anything out of or putting anything into the local community.
• If you have children, then schools are going to be a top priority.  My partner was buying a business here, so work wasn’t an issue (though buying a business abroad is a whole, other, fraught subject!), so being comfortable with the school by kids were going to attend was at the very top of my list.  We chose a British school, because at that time, Spanish schools in the south left something to be desired, the area being very much in a stage of development, where services were struggling to catch up, but if there are good schools around, then there is no better way for kids to integrate than via school.  They’ll find it tough at first, but they invariably latch on pretty fast to both language and customs, and the whole family will benefit too.  You may want to either home school them or get them private English lessons, though.  At the end of the day, it’s their first language, and they will need to be competent in it in future.
• Thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly check the paperwork you need to become resident and to work in your new country.   Don’t blow a thousand euros/dollars on an airfare, and then find out that you can’t work, or even live for more than 3 months in your new country.  If you are a national of an EU country then it’s a doddle these days, but 20+ years ago we found that although my partner, as the owner of a business, was able to work at first, I wasn’t.  I couldn’t even officially work in the business, and I also had to go back to the UK a couple of times chasing up a missing paper.  Not the end of the world, but inconvenient and costly.  Speak to people who’ve already done it, local ex-pat fora are useful for this, but be aware that they are often haunted by people who have some gripe or other, who often refuse to learn the local language (which causes then endless misunderstandings and problems), and that their experiences are personal to them.
• Check out how the local health service works, and if you are entitled to use it.  Likewise, check out health insurance.  This is not an area you want to be wishy-washy about.  It’s important.  You don’t want to break your leg, and end up with a bill for thousands of euros which is going to curtail your lifestyle for the next ten years!
• You will want to keep in touch with people back home.  Find out the cheapest way, because you will run up exorbitant phone bills if you don’t.
• Check out whatever is important to you: a decent hairdresser if you like to look just so; is there a satellite tv system which will allow you to keep up with your favorite soccer/baseball/sports team; is there a gym/golf course/tennis courts …. and if not, does it really matter? Are there any local customs or religious practises which may be at odds with your personal beliefs?  How long would it take you to get back home in an emergency (a family member gravely ill for instance)?  Are there decent internet connections?  Can you buy camera/computer/whatever spare parts, your favorite make-up or get shoes in your size?  There are probably 101 things I could name, you know what your own hobbies and pastimes are, so make your own list.

Still thinking about it?  Then you’re ready for Stage Two.  More about that soon.

 

For International Womens’ Day: My Grandmother’s Story

A few years back,  a friend suggested online on a forum of the club we both belonged to that we each write a few lines about women who had influenced our lives in some way.  We were given guidelines – a teacher, a doctor, a woman who had been a kind of surrogate mother to us, our best friend from junior school and a grandmother ………. and that was how I  got to know nana, my maternal grandmother, a woman who, I realized, I’d taken for granted during the time we’d been allotted to spend together on this planet.  Describing her, in words which others were going to read, made me put together all the bits and pieces of information about her which were filed away in different parts of my memory bank.

My first thought startled me.  Given that my first memories of her were probably when I was around five years old, that put her at around 50 at that time.  Of course, she seemed really old to me then, and now 50 seems quite young!   She was around at the previous millennium celebrations, but not old enough to remember them, a link with the 19th century, a part of history now.  She must have remembered the suffragettes, but,  heck, when she turned 21 she wasn’t even eligible to vote.  None of that had occurred to me during her lifetime.  I knew far more about my grandfather than I did about nana, and I suppose that’s down to the male chauvinism of the times, the times in which she grew up, and the times in which I grew up.

Her story, when I pieced it together, might shock today’s young, western women, and yet I have a feeling that the essential elements are still repeated, if less frequently than they were. My great-grandmother bore 16 children, and Nana was the second eldest child, and the eldest girl, with the inevitable consequence that she became the second mother to the family, her own mother being pregnant for much of Nana’s own childhood.  It was she who made sure they all got home safely from school, helped prepare their meals and made sure they did their chores.

No-one ever said out loud back then that her father was a drunk, but I know now that he was.  He was still alive when I was old-enough to remember, and when he visited us he spent his nights in the local pub, which puzzled me a lot. This was odd behavior to me. We were a teetotal family, (and his behavior partly explains why that was), and I could tell that everyone thought he was bound for hell.  It’s easy to figure out that my grandmother’s antipathy to him came from his rolling home drunk and knocking up his wife on a regular basis, and somewhere at the back of my mind there is a memory of something someone once said, which I can’t pull out, which tells me that he was violent too.

She was a clever girl, and passed exams to go to grammar school, but that was just a pipe dream –  she wasn’t allowed to go.  Instead, as soon as she was old enough to leave school, she was sent to work in the local mill to supplement the family’s income.  They lived in Sowerby Bridge in Yorkshire, England, the heart of the woollen industry at that time.  One thing I do know is that she hated that mill and resented not being able to go to school.  One reason I know that is because she pushed her own son so hard academically that he turned against her.  I don’t doubt that she wanted him to have the education she was forced to miss. I don’t doubt that wanting her family to have things she missed was a great motivation for her, but that, plus a bitterness she carried about her person,  made her withdrawn and unapproachable, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I have a blank on the next few years.  I’m not even sure how she came to meet my Lancastrian grandfather. Travelling from county to county wasn’t the commonplace thing it is now.   Did she go to Blackpool on a family holiday or outing perhaps?  They must have married about 1925; my granddad, seven years returned from WW1, when he had travelled to Egypt and India, places I am sure that as a boy he never imagined he would visit; my grandmother having lost three of her brothers in that same war.  However they met, the version I have of their story is this:  when he went off to war granddad was engaged to be married to a girl by the name of Ada Ellis.  I have a photocopy of a photograph of them together.  Whilst he was away, she died, leaving him heartbroken.  So that when he met another girl of that very same name he must have thought it was fate, and they married very soon thereafter.  Nana, I can imagine, must have been overjoyed to leave behind a very dysfunctional family life, and make a fresh start half way across the country. Little did she know that she had married into another one.

I am not clear as to whether my great-grandfather was alive at this point, but his family had a very respectable (because that wasn’t an adjective which applied to all) boarding house in Blackpool.  My aunt likes to say that when Ada arrived my grandfather’s mother took to her bed and never got up again.  In other words, she handed over all the hard work and drudgery to her new daughter-in-law, and lorded it over the family. Nana was tethered to another grindstone.

Indications are that the business flourished, but it wasn’t an easy life, especially in the summer season. The years passed.  The wicked mother-in-law died, leaving the boarding house to my grandparents.  Nana gave birth to two children, my mother and my uncle Jim, as she continued to work in the boarding house. Then came WW2, when the house was always full of servicemen on leave, Blackpool being mostly ignored by the Luftwaffe, despite its proximity to Liverpool. Then there was no season any longer, just a year-round business, and that is how my parents met.  My father was billeted there when on leave from the air force, and as soon as the war was over they became engaged.  My uncle and aunt had married shortly before, so you’d think with a family to run the business together things might be easier for Nana?  Wrong.  Perhaps the hardest part of her life was about to begin.

No-one, who now remembers, knows from where granddad got the idea of wanting to own a market garden, other than owning one’s own land was a common dream  then.  Sometime between my parent’s wedding in November of 1945 and my birth in December of 1946, the boarding house was sold, and a market garden of three acres was purchased, on the edge of  town, where it merged into countryside.  It’s where I grew up.  The entire family lived there, my grandparents, my parents and I, and my aunt, uncle and cousin.   All sounds a bit like The Waltons now, doesn’t it?

This is nana’s story, and not granddad’s, so let’s just say that there must have been a gradual build up of hurt and depression and worry, when first my dad and then my uncle had to look for “normal” jobs, leaving her with the burden of helping on the land, as well as looking after a big house, and acting as kind of nanny to my cousin and me.  Both our moms had long since gone out to work.  It was a situation which bore more resemblance to the turn of the century more than to the late 40s.  There was no mains drainage in the countryside then, and the outside toilet had to be emptied regularly.  That was one of nana’s jobs.

Hard work was no stranger, though, and it wasn’t so unusual either.  She was a physically very strong woman, but emotionally, barriers between her and the rest of the world had gone up.  What hurt her most was her husband’s neglect.  My aunt says she doesn’t remember Pop, as granddad was known to everyone, ever saying one kind word to Nana  or giving her one  gentle touch on arm even.  Maybe the touching isn’t so surprising-  the offspring of Victorian parents were often like that, but even with people who are formal one senses a connection, and there was none between them.  Further, Pop, at last master of his own domain, turned into a laggard.  Sure he turned over the soil and planted seeds, and sure that was hard, physical work, but he spent as much time drinking tea with neighbours or chatting with salesmen and distributors when they turned up.  Sure, this must have been better than Nana’s memories of her own father’s drunken escapades, but it occurs to me now that she never experienced love or any demonstation of it from the men in her life.  The family view is that Pop turned away from her because he was still in love with the ghost of the first Ada.  It’s something I’ll never know, even had I asked back then, I wouldn’t have had a straight answer.  It wasn’t the way one behaved.

Even though she acted as our nanny when we were small, made our lunches when we came home from school, made sure we went back after lunch, and that we were safe until our moms got home from work, I actually don’t remember any tenderness from her.  I suppose it had all withered by the time I was old enough to remember.

The market garden struggled along until Pop died, and then Nana was able to sell it and move into an apartment in town.  It was the only time I remember her being relaxed and making a joke, and though I hadn’t put the pieces together to make the story, I knew this was a new start and a better time.  Sadly, it didn’t last too long.  Eight years after Nana moved my cousin died, followed a year later by my mom, and the shocks reverberated in my grandmother’s mind setting off a downward spiral into senile dementia, at least that’s what the doctors called it.  My mother died in May, and one late afternoon in the following cold and hard winter I called by Nana’s house, to find the front door wide open, but her coat still on a chair.  Thinking she must have popped over to see a neighbour  I sat down and waited, and waited, and waited.  This before cellphones, remember, and eventually I went to find a call box, and started ringing around.  No-one had seen her.  My aunt and uncle came down from their home,  about an hour’s drive away.  With temperatures around freezing, we were now beginning to fear the worst, when a police car turned up, with Nana in the back seat.  Only, it wasn’t Nana in a way.  It was her body, but her mind was ……. elsewhere.  She had been found wandering that icy night some miles away from where she lived, coatless but clutching her handbag.  She was very lucky to have been found and identified by the police before it was too late.

Of course she spent her remaining years in a home……. seeing ghosts.  When I visited she thought I was her dead sister or my mother; when my uncle visited she thought he was her brother, killed in WW1.  She said little that made any sense to us, but, incredibly, she seemed happy at last.  Maybe it was because for the first time in her life she was being cared for.  The staff told me that she helped a lot in the kitchen, and from things they told me, we worked out that she thought she was back in the boarding house.  Maybe that’s when she was happy, after her mother-in-law passed on, with two small children and maybe before granddad turned his back on her.  Of course I’ll never know, and partly because in my youthful stupidity and arrogance I didn’t take the trouble to connect the dots before.  I didn’t have all the information then, but I could have perhaps pressed her more than I did.  Not only might it have helped her to break down the barriers she had put up, but she was, also, living history, as we all are, and she must have had so many stories, had I been able to unlock them.

Nana’s story seems tough by our standards today.  I know young women who will be shocked by her subservience to the men in her life who made it so hard for her.  I also know women who, in that respect, live lives not a whole lot different, but today they do have a choice.  They have the vote.  They are obliged to continue in education until they are 16, and if they are denied the right to further education by their parents it’s possible, though hard, I know, to leave and follow their own path.  They have the right to step out of an unhappy marriage.   They have the right to a share of the assets of the marriage, so they can start a new life.  They can get a mortgage in their own names, without a male guarantor.  Some of these things have even come about in my adulthood.

It’s a mystery then that some women in the west choose to continue on a similar path; but it is heartbreaking that stories even harder, much harder, than Nana’s are still being played out elsewhere in the world.  We owe it to our sisters throughout the world to support their rights to live in freedom and dignity.

Why I Don’t Do Carnaval

It’s 1989 and the beginning of a new school year.  Shoulder pads are on their way out, and moms gather and chat in the car park about what’s ahead on the school calendar, Christmas fayre, Easter bonnets and the local carnaval parade being the highlights.  It’s a small, English, prep-type school.  Although it’s fairly international, most of the pupils are English ex-pats.  The Christmas stuff is traditional, some dad or other plays Santa and there is jelly and cake;  Easter is mum’s making bonnets and the easter egg hunt – which leaves Carnaval as the time to integrate more with the local community in which we live.

Every year since I’ve been here the kids have dressed up and tagged onto the end of the parade in Los Cristianos.  There is no PTA as such, the school is too small and informal really, but there is a bunch of moms who like to help out and get involved.  This year the leading light amongst this bunch suggests that we do a bit more than the tinsel and cardboard creations, and really go for it – “proper” costumes, grease paint and glitter, a float, music and choreography; in other words the whole nine yards, being an integral part of Carnaval.  Meetings between teachers and parents are held, and enthusiasm is palpable, on all sides.  It is, after all, months away, and it doesn’t seem like such a huge task.

First reality check – The big parade in the Santa Cruz Carnaval is Shrove Tuesday, of course, so there is no need to wonder about when it happens.  In Los Cristianos it takes place two or three weeks later.   You would think that for such a big day on the municipal calendar there would be a specific date and a theme set, say, a year in advance, but, no, roughly six months away, and there is no information available.  This, remember, is the days before internet or social networking (how much easier have our lives become!), and extracting this information means a visit to Arona (a round trip of about 50 km) to quiz people in the town hall.  A liaison is appointed, a lady who speaks perfect Spanish, unlike most of us, but the days drone on and there is no word.  We are aware that we need to start working now to outfit and train around 70 kids and 20 parents/teachers, and raise the money to do so.  The dream would collapse if parents had to pay the true cost of costumes, however frugal we might be.

We launch ourselves into a program of money-raising events, raffles and race nights, lunches and tombolas, and all of the traditional ways and means PTAs and the like have used for decades.  This is all a brand-new world to me, and I am amazed by the dedication of a few, the antipathy of some, and ultimately by our success.  It is every bit as demanding, tiring and rewarding as a fulltime job.  In fact, hell, it is a fulltime job!  I remind you again, that this is in the days before cellphones and computers made communicating so much easier, and remind myself that it is in the days before there is a legal limit to the amount of alcohol one could consume before driving a car.  There seems to be a fair bit of alcohol involved in these evening events!

Eventually, word filters through that the theme of Disney has been chosen (this proves to be erroneous so far as I can make out, but we go with it anyway), and a meeting is set to agree on what theme within that we go for.  We stay clear of the obvious Mickeys and Plutos, and choose Alice in Wonderland.  The meeting drags on and characters are decided and  roles doled out (sometimes under duress!), music and costumes are discussed, and shopping planned to start spending all that hard-earned cash.  A schedule of regular meetings to discuss progress and plan further is also set up.  We are an army.  We are invincible.

The costumes are all to be made in-house, so sewing groups are formed by those who have or can borrow sewing machines, and people are appointed to be in charge of various aspects of our endeavor.  The search is on for a suitable wagon to act as our float, which will portray the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.  Those not on the float will be the Red King and Queen and their attendants (who are the dancers), and Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who will be our “clowns”.  Material is bought and sewing commences.  I don’t have a machine, so I am not a sewer, but I volunteer for headdresses, as these are mainly to be made by hand.

Someone scores yards of white satin decorated with playing cards, and we have the start of the costumes for the Red Queen and King and their attendants, most of whom will be the pack of playing cards.

It’s after Christmas now, and we throw ourselves into both the costume making and more fundraising.  Of course, on the fund-raising score, people are getting a bit fed up of us by now, and there is a definite giver-fatigue setting in, but, to my amazement, amongst the organizers there is a level of enthusiasm and goodwill ongoing which I have rarely observed before in life.  To date no-one has flounced off, bad-mouthed anyone or sulked.  We have a giggly high point when one of the moms returns from a visit to the UK having raided a theatrical suppliers which was closing down.  It has yielded the Mad Hatter’s costume and lots of other goodies which we can adapt.  It gives us a lift and melts away the blues brought on by both that giver-fatigue, and the complaints from husbands about cold meals and our obsession with Carnaval…..and that is what it has become, an obsession, almost a raison d’être, and for the first time I understand just how big a deal this is to the people of Santa Cruz.  Heck this is only the much smaller version, in Los Cristianos, yet here we are putting hearts, souls and lives into it, and for this brief time, little else is more important.

As yet we haven’t started to choreograph our entry.  This is a primary school, and we are aware that the children probably will either forget or get bored if we begin too soon, but the day is fast approaching when it must be begun.  I can breathe a sigh of relief that I haven’t a musical bone in my body, so all I have to do is to learn the steps with the children.  Hours are spent after school and at weekend, practising a kind of hop, skip and jump which snakes from side to side across the street.  It ain’t easy.  I’m probably the oldest at 43 and the youngest is probably around four years old.

We are now around a month from what we assume will be the big day, and the Carnaval in Santa Cruz is already beginning, yet still, despite almost daily calls to the town hall, there is, apparently no fixed date for Los Cristianos.  Apart from appointing it in our diaries, an official registration as participants has to be made, and we are anxious to do it right.  We are still in want of a lorry too.  Hair is beginning to be torn out, but despite the lack of lorry we begin on the mammoth task of making thousands and thousands of crepe paper flowers to decorate the lorry and create a suitable bower for the Mad Hatter and his weird friends.

Finally, at last, por fin the day is set by the town hall – time for a dress rehearsal.  Close to the school there is an abandoned building site, where infrastructure has already been laid, the perfect place one windy and hot Sunday afternoon to two-step our way around and around those ghostly streets.  Weary tots, bored pre-teens and fraught moms, dads and teachers drill for hour after hour it seems, careful not to get our costumes dusty, remembering the hours of toil and tears which have been sewn into them.  It’s a week off now.  We are as good as we will ever be, but still no lorry.

Suddenly, as hopes are fading, we receive an offer, friend of a friend of a parent has a lorry which will not be used on Sunday, but which will not be available for decoration until late Saturday.  It will have to do.  We are desperate.  Saturday passes in a flurry of colorful, crepe roses, gin and tonics, sore fingers from the rose making, bored kids and more gin and tonics.  The lorry begins its transformation from dirty work vehicle to floral fantasy, and that’s when the magic begins, and we begin to realize that our dream is coming true.  It’s beginning to feel a lot like Carnaval.

Sunday dawns bright and sunny, by no means a given at this time of year.  Whereas in past years we’d sauntered down and met in a local bar towards the end of the parade route, tagging on at the end when the official entrants had all passed by, this year we have to be on time.  There are numbers and schedules.  The irony of this is not lost on us.  This parade always slated to begin at 4, never, ever has begun on time, but punctual we are.  Grease paint and sequins are applied to faces young and old, costumes are pulled on and last-minute adjustments are made.  Nerves are at fraying point, excitement washes over our group and those nearby. We hear the various musical groups and bands begin to play.  We try to keep the kids calm and grease paint from running in the heat as we wait, and it is hot in our costumes.

Finally our number is called and our unrecognizable lorry pulls slowly out of the side street to join the parade.  We follow, at first very nervous, tippy toe-ing, giggling both kids and adults,  then, reaching the main street, our music strikes up from the amps on the truck, our leader gives the signal and our dance begins.

We weave our way along the main street, crisscrossing, smiling as we pass each other, now chuckling, now confident, making sure the kids can keep up, laughing at Tweedledum and Tweedledee as they entertain the crowds which line the roadside, and not at all envying those on the lorry acting out the tea party and tossing candy to the crowd.  We have our rhythm.  We begin to hear shouts and whoops of encouragement from folks along the road who know us, people pass us drinks in paper cups, we grin inanely  at friends and family rushing out with cameras.  We are, in short, having the time of our life.  I’m not sure just how long the route is, but I guess about a kilometer, and it’s lined with Fun, with a capital F.  It’s the most fun thing I’ve ever done in my life.  Tweedledum confesses it’s second only to his wedding day on his personal fun chart.

As we reach the end of the parade route all the groups kind of just merge into the fairground, people collapse in heaps of merriment and laughter on verges, and we have to keep a sharp eye out for the children.  Happily, most parents have the schedule and those not taking part are there to collect their offspring and not a child is lost.  Tourists ask us to pose for pictures, and we just can’t stop laughing.  At the end of the day I have consumed surprisingly little alcohol, and am on a natural high.  What a feeling!  Even grumpy husbands now admit that the late meals and “neglect” were all worth it, and we believe them for a time.  It most certainly is a day to remember.

On Monday night there is a presentation of prizes, which requires the participants donning costumes again and attending, but Carnaval not being so important to the British community, few parents allow their kids to attend on a school night.  However,  we win a prize for presentation, so word drifts down to us, as we potter about our evening tasks, still basking in the merry memories of 24 hours past.

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And the reason I don’t do Carnaval any longer?  Well, we kind of gave it a try the following year.  The majority didn’t want to give up so much of their time again, so the kids went back to tagging on at the end.  It’s very probable that they had just as much fun doing that, and probably didn’t at all miss the costume fittings and rehearsals!  A few of us ran up glam costumes to match what the kids were wearing, but it just wasn’t the same. Several years on I tried it again, walking with the school, and it was nice, but still, not the same kick as ’90.   Springsteen wrote about the feeling –  ”Glory Days”.  You have to know when you won’t better something, don’t even try, move on to something else. or you’ll get stuck in a grove.  There will never be a Carnaval experience to equal actually taking part, spending months planning and working towards it, the anticipation, the tensions, and then really and truly letting your hair down on the day, that feeling of liberation, of not caring less about anything other than the fun of it all, and now I know better than to try.

I’ve been looking for photos to put on this post, but they seem to be packed well away somewhere, which, perhaps, is where memories best belong.