2011: Postcards to Myself

2011 was, well, ok. It had several challenges and some very low spots, but there were plenty of good times too, and those are the times we remember.

It was another slow travel year, though, this recession bites deeper all the time. That said, it was Sevilla and Barcelona, York and London and the English Lake District, not exactly the armpits of the world, eh! It was also Cirque du Soleil, Las Tablas de San Andres and snow, lots of snow this year :=) (well, up in the mountains at least). There was also lots of sunshine, waves, fiestas, visits from friends old and new; some wonderful hiking and delicious food and wine. It was a chance to improve my photography, and some stunning scenery to inspire it, both near and afar-ish.

Things that stand out:

•  I actually got paid to write something! OK not going to either win the Pulitzer nor keep the wolf from the door, but it was an ambition achieved.
• I went rappelling, which just shook my whole world up in terms of having done something I didn’t think I could do.
•  Kew Gardens, which was amazing (and I only saw a fraction of it!) and proved to me that even in a place you’ve known for years you can still find new and wonderful things.
• The forth was the first time Maria and I went in search of the stars and instead found the amost overwhelmingly beautiful sunset ever (We did find stars in the end too, but it was the unexpected sunset which took away my breath).
• “Discovering” the Anaga Mountains was memorable too. It was the last place on Tenerife I hadn’t been, and within a half hour of hiking it had become my favorite.

Mostly what stands out are the times I spent with my wonderful family and friends every one of whom is a blessing to me, and whom I am very grateful to have in my life. Not all those times are represented in this mosaic because not everyone is comfortable being splashed around online.

Since I began this blog I’ve never used New Year’s Eve for musings much.  I did hit a big birthday this year, and that has given me pause for thought, but more of that another day, for now it’s just what I’ve always done – paint a wee mosaic of my year.

Grasmere : An Autumnal and Eternal Slice of Real England

I think I was around 10 years old when my aunt and uncle moved to the Lake District.  Until then my experiences had been lovely Sunday excursions of the sort we used to make in the 1950s, the family all piling into a chunky car (wow, but cars were SO different back in those days!), eating ice cream, feeding ducks on lakes and going across Lake Winderemere on the ferry if I was really lucky!

When Uncle Jim and Auntie Dot moved to Bowness-on-Winderemere my vacations and experiences took on a whole, new meaning, especially when I was old enough not to be accompanied by my grandmother, and we had freedom to explore the countryside in a very “Swallows and Amazons” sort of way.  Back in the 1950s it was safe for kids to roam a bit, and let our imaginations have full rein…..but that’s the subject of a whole other post one day.

I have the most vivid memory of the first time I saw the village of Grasmere.  We’d walked en famille from Rydal Water, through knee-high bracken and over hills, my stoic grandmother, handbag on the crook of her arm, as was the habit then, more like a Sunday stroll than a hike, but I knew that it was my first real hike, even then. Grasmere gave me a little thrill when we arrived.  It was so like the villages I imagined from books, quaint, pretty, with a neat church alongside a brook, and a few scattered houses. In essence, despite the increase in traffic and the hoards of tourists who now come from every corner of the world,  it hasn’t changed. Off  the top of my head, I can think of nowhere else I know which has retained its atmosphere in the face of the modern world in the way which Grasmere has.

When I came to study Wordsworth in high school it added interest that I’d seen his grave and the village he loved.  I like to think I wouldn’t have needed the extra encouragement. Wordsworth remains one of my favorite poets. He has always filled my soul with his words, produced an almost physical response in me. Later in my high school life there would be visits to Dove Cottage, his home for 8 or 9 years, and then and still a museum.

Grasmere has drawn me back so many times over the years that I couldn’t possible even attempt a guess at how often I’ve visited – there have been family afternoon teas in the cafe beside the river on whose other bank lies the churchyard, both with my  parents and later with my own children; it has been the starting point and the finishing point for hikes around the area; and in the last few years somewhere for a gentle amble and a re-living of memories with my father.

That was what October of this year was. A stroll along the main street, these days much, much busier than it was in the 1950s of course, although in October not too bad, and tea and scones in one of the excellent cafés; a turn around the churchyard ……..and a visit to the Gingerbread shop.

Sarah Nelson’s Gingerbread is world-famous to those in the know, and the story of how it came to be is both heartbreaking and inspiring, take a minute to read it in the words on their website, which are far more eloquent than mine would be.  As you approach the tiny shop your nose begins to twitch, and when you enter, the warm and comforting smell of ginger fills the air. It’s very addictive! Moreover, the taste totally lives up to the anticipation the aroma produces! The gingerbread is hard and crunchy, but then disintegrates in the mouth in a burst of flavor, leaving the sugary, gingery crumbs to be licked off the lips. Oh, yes, it’s addictive!

The only problem I have with it is that it’s also dense and heavy, meaning I can’t bring too much back with me in these days of low-cost travel consequences, but perhaps that’s just as well!

Maria’s Favorite Nook in Barcelona

This post will probably not be what you expect. It wasn’t what I expected, as we strolled the winding streets of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, and Maria said, “Come on. I’ll take you to my favorite square in the city.”

I expected, I suppose, perhaps somewhere like La Plaza de las Naranjas in Marbella, a colorful square filled with flora, people and parasols. It wasn’t anything like that.

Fascinated by the narrow streets through which we passed, I was snapping photos and not thinking about much else. As Maria walked through an archway I called out for her to turn around and pose, but she didn’t hear me.

As I passed under the same arch something seemed to flow over me, a sense of peace.  I was aware of a palpable silence, yet we’d only walked a few seconds from Barcelona’s hustle and bustle. It was as if passing under that archway marked a beginning and an ending. There was one of those wild-looking hobo-types ranting and apparently drunk, but he didn’t seem to be threatening, and his chatter was easy to block out in the overwhelming sense of tranquility.

The square wasn’t pretty, though there was an old fountain in its center, and a bar tucked into a corner.  It was a austere, and had a run-down air……. and then Maria explained to me why.

We were in the square of the church of San Felipe Neri, and although I didn’t remember the name, I did remember reading about the place where Franco’s troops had executed untold numbers of folk during the Spanish Civil War.  The run-down look of the walls of the church and the adjoining buildings, which had been a convent and a school, was because those pockmarks were caused by the bullets of the firing squads.

Knowing that, I can’t account for this sense of calm. Perhaps the ghosts are at peace, as some website claimed when I looked it up later.  Civil Wars are always the most destructive, as if some special venom is reserved for our brothers and sisters, and Spain’s began a mere 75 years ago, it’s barely history. For sure there are still open wounds, events which need explaining, disappearances which need to be solved, and it’s hard to imagine that the ghosts would yet be at peace. If you google la Iglesia de San Felipe Neri many sites don’t even mention the executions, not unusual in a country which tried to bury its collective memories, and which, in many ways, still has to come to terms with them. The web sites mention the bomb, which fell there in 1938, which resulted in the the deaths of between 20 and 45 people (depending on which site you read), most of whom were children, sheltering in the basement of the 18th Century church when the ceiling caved in, and they mention that it is the site of an ancient burial ground, so if anywhere is the haunt of the dead, this place would be.

I left my camera around my neck, untouched.   This place seemed too sacred to play tourist. The church doors were firmly shut on the day we were there. I don’t know if it is open to tourists normally, but as Maria’s words sank in, and I stood quietly by the fountain absorbing them, this quirky vehicle drew slowly by.

It seemed incongruous, brightly-colored and commercial against the sombre walls, and yet who was I to judge – isn’t that how wars begin? Perhaps the people were too infirm to walk the city’s streets, and wasn’t this environmentally friendly and quiet, and who am I to think I have any more right to be there than they? And if this tragic place is on the tourist circuit isn’t it right that we should know the truth and remember it? I raised my camera, but without the enthusiasm I usually feel.

 

My Special Barcelona Places

It’s almost over, 2011, and I was looking back over the things I’d filed away to post “later” and never did get around to doing.  Considering that my only trip this year was a mere three or four weeks I can’t believe how much of it I missed posting about.  Probably because so much of it was very personal time, and I have, even now, a lingering sense of sadness about the trip.

That aside, Barcelona, was, as always, a very vibrant memory, and I deliberately didn’t write about my favorite places because I wanted to take my time and do them justice.  However, it is now time. I always like to at least try to begin the new year with as many ends as possible tidied up, so here are some more memories from one of my favorite cities:

Barcelona might be the richest city in the world architecturally, and many of the inspiring buildings are churches and cathedrals. When you say “Barcelona,” for many people the image which first springs to mind is Gaudi’s still-unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia, others will register the word “Gothic” and think about the Cathedral and its surrounds, but the two images which first flash across my brain are these:

Santa Maria del Mar

The church of Santa Maria del Mar may not be as grand and flashy as La Sagrada Familia or the Gothic Cathedral, but it’s one of the few churches I know which make me feel the way I think I should feel in a church…..peaceful and happy.

The first time I came across it, knowing nothing about it, was by accident.  I had been in the city for a few days, and was recovering from the worst food poisoning of my life, so I was strolling very gently, sin rumbo (without direction – love that phrase in Spanish), when something drew me in.  From the outside it really didn’t look very impressive, but when I entered it was like crossing the threshold to another dimension. To eyes perhaps wearied by Gaudí’s opulence, and a heart jaded by Gothic religious overkill, the church was a haven of light and elegance.

Although it was under construction during the same period as the city’s cathedral in the 14^th century, and the style is Gothic, there is a simplicity to the interior which makes me feel as though, if  “God”  had to choose somewhere to live, this would be it. The lack of clutter, an open space without transepts, and columns which really seem to be reaching to heaven give it a graceful majesty, but the stained glass windows give it warmth. It’s accepted that this church is the church of the people, (whereas the much more showy Cathedral was for the nobility) and, of course, of the sailors and fishermen who made up so much of the population of that time.

Santa Maria del Mar is on the tourist beat (where inBarcelonaisn’t these days?) but it’s less crowded than perhaps better-known places.  My second favorite place is a haven for both tourists and locals, and it’s Port Vell.

Port Vell

Having stuffed ourselves on tapas yet again in wonderful bars which look so uninviting from the outside, but which open out into quirky or cosy or chic interiors, Maria and I thought we might take in an IMAX movie in Port Vell on the city’s stylish waterfront to finish the day. There were certain distractions, though, a street market and a quirky fountain to photograph! In the end we were too late for the movie, so we bought waffles from a kiosk and perched on a bench to scoff them.

Port Vell as it is today was created for the 1992 Olympics, held in Barcelona, but surely must have paid for itself in the tourism it’s attracted since. I adore IMAX movies, so it’s somewhere I always want to go just for that alone, but over the years I’ve eaten some great seafood there, visited the excellent aquarium, done some serious shopping and, on this occasion, had my breath taken away by a stunning sunset.

For a short visit we packed in a lot of on that trip, and there is yet one more place, but I’m saving that for another post…..so it may yet be 2012 before I am finished with all my notes and snaps from this year!

A Tenerife Beach which isn’t in the Brochures

Hurtling up the autopista on a Sunday, take a peek over to where the sun glances off the creamy tips of the waves, contrasting with the misshapen rocks, spewed up from ancient volcanic eruptions.  In summer the bays and nooks of this coastline are filled with families enjoying the sunshine and the ocean. Local families these days rarely bother with the tourist beaches of  Playa de lasAmericas, and few with the beaches of Los Cristianos.  On these more remote shores you can barbeque, put up day tents, take your dog, get a little drunk – basically, do all the things which tourism has made socially unacceptable on the posh beaches.

I did a wee post for Tenerife.co.uk a month or so ago about this theme, and wanted to take some pictures of Playa Grande in Poris de Abona to go with it.  It wasn’t the busy Sunday scene I found, though, it was autumn and about an hour before sunset.

The beach was deserted, the little ice cream stand all locked up, and the only people around were a couple of hikers who passed by. It all looked much more seasonal than the island usually is.  Tenerife’s “sub-title” is “Island of Eternal Spring,” and certainly on the south and south-west coasts people sunbathe all year round, so to observe such apparent bleakness on a good-weather day (I’d been roasting in Santa Cruz) felt strange. I suppose coming from Blackpool the idea of seasons is firmly entrenched in my brain. I remember Blackpool better off-season than high-season, because we avoided the summer crowds like the plague.

Clouds were beginning to descend from the hillsides, making the leggy, white windmills of a nearby wind farm stand out in contrast to the gathering gloom, and I was losing light fast for the photo I wanted, and yet I didn’t want to leave. The calm was taking hold of my brain;  the slight chill, the persistence of the ocean trying to reach the shore, that lonesome sound of gulls circling and the sense of having the world to oneself.

Just along from the bay and the sand, the beach was littered with the cages which are used for fishing for pulpo, some of them twisted and rotting, and I wondered about why we are drawn to beaten-up, discarded objects and decaying mortar and peeling paintwork.  Is it curiosity about the stories they might tell, or is it pity of the unwanted or some sort of respect for history?

This pretty little beach, surround by gnarled and almost sinister rock formations, is only 20 minutes, tops, from the famous beaches, yet it’s a thousand miles away in experience. You won’t find amenities, no lifeguards, no loos, nor bars even, but a sense of peace, at least on this occasion, which you have to travel much further to find in other places.

Autumn in London’s Kew Gardens: An Unexpected Treat

I was five years old the first time I went to London. Needless to say, I was terribly excited. In my befuddled, five-year-old head I thought it was some kind of rite of passage – visiting the capital of one’s country.  After the visit I would be much more clever and sophisticated…….I didn’t think in those words, of course – I didn’t know those words then – but that’s the emotion I remember.What I remember about the vacation itself are the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, and being forced to eat my chips in Lyons Corner House (it was only 6 years after the end of WW2 and seeing food wasted was still hard for my parents to accept.)

The next time I went I was in my teens…….and London was Swinging (capital S intended). It was THE place on the planet to be. It was colorful and vibrant, and intimidating to a provincial lass chasing coolness and sophistication (oh, there’s that word again, but I understood it by then).  There were several visits in those years, I remember riverside pubs, Swedish saunas, seeing imposing signs like “Scotland Yard” or “BBC” – this was real life.  There were also the Tower of London, Portobello Road Market, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral (not to be confused), St Paul’s, the Changing of the Guard – the usual tourist stuff in other words.

In my 20s and early 30s going to London was about posh weekends;  theater, shopping in Harrods, the latest movies, foreign foods you couldn’t get at home, dressing up, the 007 Bar in the Hilton Hotel (my idea of sophistication then – Ouch!)

Having transplanted my kids to a foreign land at tender ages, there came the point where a visit to London was a “must-do” on a lot of levels. By this time there were, to my horror, queues to get into the main attractions.  Still living in a sort of hicksville, I hadn’t realized just how big tourism had become back home.  So there was quite a bit we missed – it wasn’t really queuing weather.  It was a chill late October. We lapped up  movies in English (there were none available here then), we saw a couple of shows, and I discovered that museums were now entire entertainment centers, not just showcases of old stuff. I think we went twice to the Imperial War Museum (still a favorite of mine), and, of course, the Natural History Museum.  The thing which really sticks in my memory, though, is the parks, which were  breathtaking panoramas of golds, ambers and reds. It was crisp and dry, and the leaves were piled up in colorful clumps, just the way I remembered them from my childhood, and we  kicked them about, we scooped up armfuls and threw them into the air,   we fell dramatically into the heaps and we jumped on them, listening to the crackling sounds. It was one of those things you do as a child which you want to do with your own kids, a postcard from childhood.

In more recent years London has been about the London Eye, Camden Market, the London Marathon, Springtime in the parks, and it’s still about foreign foods (only the last time it was Cinnabon – well, it is foreign!) I can’t get at home and the latest movies. My Autumn trip this year, however, held a new experience, and one I can’t believe I’ve never had before. I went to Kew Gardens.

Guy took me as a surprise, so I didn’t know anything about it except that it is home to the largest collection of plants in the world, and some very attractive greenhouses, which I’d glimpsed from the air a couple of times, when my flight had been stacked, waiting to land at a London airport. I knew that it was an authority to be reckoned with – one absorbs a certain amount of information during one’s life without knowing it! It turns out that it’s a World Heritage Site, and covers over 300 acres, and it a world leader in scientific research into plant life, its consequences, history and future.  They have a pretty impressive mission statement.

Knowing very little of this, I enjoyed the outing simply as a beautiful, mellow, autumnal day.  We marveled at the beauty of orchids and waterlilies; we laughed about how plants in the Palm House, termed exotic, were perfectly normal roadside plants to us; we kicked up a few leaves too, but honestly this park is so neat and tidy there weren’t that many, although, as you can see the trees were quite spectacularly showing off their seasonal glory. We defended our picnic lunch from the very persistent Canada Geese, and we I kept a sensible distance from carnivorous flora!

I’m a sucker for history, so afterwards I read up about Kew, about how evidence from pre-history shows that there was almost certainly a settlement there, on the rich, alluvial soil by the banks of the River Thames; about how the first records of the area show it to be a huge field, which was then, over time broken down into smaller units; about how one owner, Sir Henry Capel was a fanatical gardener and began the transformations which have resulted in what we see today; and about how much of what we now see is owed to Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales in the 18th century. That was a century which brought much exotic, new flora and fauna to Europe’s shores, as explorers and conquistadors spread out over the globe in search of society’s next talking point. In fact, the idea of botanical gardens was born then.  The Botanical Gardens here in the Canary Islands, in Puerto de la Cruz, were established as a kind of stopping off point, so that plants could be studied and acclimatized before being taken to the mainland.

There are so many sides to Kew that it must surely take more than one day to see it all, and our day was a short one – October, remember.  What struck me was how good a thing it is that folk want to spend a day looking at, essentially, beauty, in this often drab and chaotic world.  I suppose only a fraction of the people there that day were interested in the history, or in the science of what they saw, and it isn’t necessary. Just seeing, experiencing nature is enough, words aren’t always needed.

Oh, and they have a great sense of humor there too!

I can’t finish without mentioning that there was there a photographic exhibition entitled “Hard Rain” which is quite extraordinary and very moving. It’s all the more moving for being outdoors, surrounded by trees.  Hard Rain began as a project to set images to Bob Dylan’s iconic song. No doubt even Dylan didn’t realize the full impact of his words. What we were doing to each other and the environment back then seems little compared with the problems we now know we face, and the lack of concern. Because I have the book I didn’t take pictures of the exhibit, which was a bit silly, but there is a picture on the website.

One thing I know. Kew Gardens is high on my list of places to revisit the next time I go to London.  I will go armed with information about the aspects I want to see, and I have penciled it in for springtime too – it must look astounding in the spring!

Of Blue Doors & Butterflies: A Short Stroll in the Countryside

The year is rapidly running out. Stupid, in a way, to move house on the cusp of the festive season, but it’s the way leases work here, and, of course, needs must, the pension being on hold for now I needed to downsize some more. The natural inclination is to get this new apartment straight for the new year, and so there isn’t much to report so far as day to day life goes. It’s unpacking, Christmas shopping and planning (albeit everything will be late this year!), and my other goal is to edit and archive all my photos from the year too. New beginnings – I love ‘em!

So, naturally, in the course of sorting the photos there are masses I’ve never used, and I thought I’d do a few photo essays by way of keeping in touch and using the photos. Expect to see more photos next year, but more of intentions and resolutions for 2012 a bit later, at the appropriate time.

For now, this set of photos comes from a short stroll I took with Pilar & Cristina in October, when, as you can see, the chestnuts were still on the trees and not in the braziers! We were visiting Cristina’s sister, (who was about to depart for pastures new on the other side of the world – jealous, not much!) in the woodland just above Icod de los Vinos, and it was one of those cool and clear Autumn days when you wonder at the perfection of the natural world.  In the land around the family home there is an orchard and buildings now abandoned, which I lapped up!

There are very few places on this island where you can’t catch at least a glimpse of the ocean, even here in the pine forest.

In the early days of the island’s conquest by Spain the main crop around here was sugar cane, and you still find remnants.

Las Tablas de San Andres: Fiesta Fun or Madness in Icod de los Vinos?

Spain is famous for its crazy festivals, and the Canary Islands have their fair share, that’s for sure.  However, Las Tablas de San Andes in the historic town of Icod de los Vinos, has to take the prize for craziest. How crazy is it?  Well, would you slide helter-skelter down an almost vertical, cobble-stoned street on a tea-tray?

And as proof of just how significant the event is, the town even displays a sculpture of a rider outside the Casa de Cáceres, now a museum, but formerly a grand, colonial-style residence, on the corner of la Plaza Pila.

In fact, as with many traditions and festivals, it evolved from historical roots.  The town’s name is a combination of the Guanche (the original inhabitants of the island) name Icod and “de los Vinos”  in tribute to the area’s most popular product.  The feast of San Andres, or St Andrew (yes, Tenerife shares a patron saint with Scotland), falls on November 29th, just when the new season’s wine is ready to be tried and approved, so the day is very much about the presentation of the new wine.  In days of yore, when barrels were needed for the wine, citizens would take themselves to the forests above the town to cut down suitable trees, and then, sitting astride them, would propel themselves downhill using sticks as steering and breaks, to get them to the vineyards. When and how the jump was made from tree trunk to tea-tray I don’t know, but the tradition is most definitely alive and well in the town in the 21st century.

I’m lucky that my friend, Cristina, is a native of Icod.  She’s been asking me for a few years now to go experience the festival, but this year was the first time I made it.  In fact, last year the entire fiesta was cancelled following torrential rains – white water rafting might have been more appropriate than sledging!

We were about ten minutes or so out of Icod when the extent of the fiesta began to dawn on me.  As we passed through tiny villages and the suburbs of the town we were down to a crawling pace – just in case any sledges, with or without children attached, came hurtling out of one of the hilly side roads.  Glancing to the right,  I could see that narrow streets were barricaded with mounds of tyres, and access would be impossible other than on foot.  Goodness me, was the whole area disrupted this way? The answer was pretty obviously yes, the nearer to the town center we got, the bigger the piles of tyres!

Officially, this day is not a bank holiday, though some children clearly were not in school, other schools were open for business as usual. It both delights and irritates me that fiestas are taken so “seriously” here.  At Carnaval week, for instance, banks close at midday,which I usually curse, but another side of me thinks that it is absolutely fan-bl**dy-tastic that fun and pleasure are considered so important.

Cristina regaled me with stories of her childhood adventures from this, particular, holiday as we approached the town.  Apparently on the eve of San Andes it was the custom for the local kids to knock on neighbors’ doors, and to be given candies, just as American kids do on Halloween.

It seemed suspiciously quiet as we parked up. It was just before lunchtime, and there was that calm-before-the-storm feeling.  As we walked through Icod’s meandering, main roads,  stalls and bars were setting up in the streets, and the braziers were being stoked in readiness for the day’s other traditional treat – roasted chestnuts…..on a personal level my idea of heaven was about to explode in my taste buds – chestnuts AND wine!  Chestnut is my second-favorite flavor, after cinnamon (in case you wondered).  Ahead we spied a small crowd at the next  junction, and sure enough there was a huge pile of tyres, and up at the top of the street a crowd of kids, clearly psyching each other to “come on down.”

Suddenly, a pretty-in-pink little girl, who looked to be about eight or nine years old, detached herself from the crowd, pushed herself off,  with heavily gloved hands, just the way you would in snow, and began to bump her way  down the street.  She was followed by a couple of young bucks, whether not to be outdone by a girl, or in hot pursuit I don’t know, but she was on her feet and heading back, tea-tray tucked under arm, as they crashed, heroically, into the tyres.

At a closer glance, the tablas were something even less than tea-tray;  basically a slat of wood (and using anything other than wood is, apparently, cheating) with metal rails fixed either side.  A friend of Cristina’s told me that her niece had been decorating hers for weeks.  We watched the fun for a while, me not knowing whether to applaud their courage or shake my head, but when we moved on to the even steeper street which approaches Plaza Pila, I could see that what we’d been watching was, indeed, just kids’ stuff.  This is where the big boys were playing.The street twists so much that we couldn’t even see the beginning of the run, and the lads in their early teens who were careering down, swayed from side to side and were going, well, a bit faster than the little kids had been doing, and when they crashed into the ginormous pile of tyres they did it with huge aplomb and much drama, so much so that I drew a sharp breath a couple of times, on one occasion much to the amusement of the owner of the bar in which I was sitting.  I couldn’t resist commenting that the young men of Icod were loco, and she laughed that if they were crazy then so was she, because she’d loved to take part when she was young. It seemed that the entire population had taken part in this madness at some stage in their lives, and I couldn’t believe how normal it was considered to be!

Rosa and I with our first glasses of the night.

We returned to Plaza Pila that night for the presentation of the new wine.  This proved to be a surprisingly staid affair, given the exciting things happening around town, with lots of speeches, and we drifted over to the other side of the square to listen to a group of local musicians playing outside a bar.  They seemed to be much more in the spirit of things! Eventually, what Churchill called the “jaw jaw” over, servers appeared out of nowhere to open the bottles of wine lined up on the tables around the square, and others appeared magically with trays of canapés, nuts and, of course, chestnuts to soak up the wine, and the serious business of the night began.   Even the musicians packed up to attend to the more important business. It wasn’t a serious wine tasting so much as a celebration that the year’s harvest was finally bottled and ready.  Canarian wines should be drunk young, and the white wine from Icod de los Vinos is one of the islands best and most famous.

Once the wine ran out in the Plaza the trek was on to find more, basically what Brits would call a “pub crawl”.  Returning to the town’s main thoroughfares, those bars and stalls and braziers which had been setting up before were now all doing a roaring trade, and it seemed as if the entire population was out on the streets having fun one way or another.

It’s a very sociable festival, and perhaps there are hints of welcoming the change in season too, which pre-date what we know for sure about local history. It certainly felt like the beginning of the “holiday season,” just as Thanksgiving does in the US. As we wandered, our group increased and decreased in numbers as folk joined,  and others went to greet friends.  People would disappear only to reappear a couple of stops further on.

When we came across the streets where the tablas were racing, the kids’ stuff had given way to the real macho guys (and a sprinkling of girls). Closer inspection showed that their tablas were posher affairs than the kiddies’ ones too, most of them with foam or some sort of cushioning to sit on…..and it soon was obvious that they needed it!  The undersides were being waxed with all the dedication an experienced skier pays to his skis.  Older teens and young adults were nothing less than hurling themselves down seemingly vertical slopes, vying as to who could take off highest on the bumps, and lurching into those tyre mountains (the bigger the boys the bigger the mountains!) at terrifying speeds.  Imagine the luge, only on the street and not on ice!  Every now and then whistles would sound, flares would be held up as instruction to stop further activity until some wounded participant was extricated and helped away by the Red Cross.  When this happened the watching crowd would seep onto the street, and never seemed to quite get back to its original limits, with the result that it seemed more dangerous to be an onlooker than a rider! Watching was a bit like watching stock car racing – you’re waiting for the crashes. At one point we visited some friends of Cristina who live overlooking one of the main venues, and had a bird’s-eye view.

At another point we retired for sustenance to a bar which had erected a special kiosk outside from whence came the most delicious aromas of frying meats. Inside, we managed to corner a table as a group left, and crowded around to satisfy our hunger, conversation mostly being drowned by some fairly un-tuneful and very merry singing from a group at another table.

Finally, tired and full and happy, we wound our way to the house of Cristina’s friends, Rosa and Luis, who kindly let us crash there for the night.  No-one who offered me a ride will ever know how tempted I was.  This whole, crazy scene reminded me so much of stuff we used to do as kids back in the 50s, daring each other to go higher or faster or whatever. I did resist though – perhaps another time, because it’s a very addictive kind of crazy!

Thoughts on Moving House and Starting Over – or Not!

A week and half of scuttling back and forth with empty boxes and bags, and returning with full boxes and bags; a week of doing nothing which brought in income; two Big Macs, three empanadas, countless cokes/pepsis, three or four chocolate bars, one dulce de leche cornet and a sticky bun later I am ensconced in my new abode.…..moving house is a comfort food zone.

I’ve packed up my stuff. I’ve unpacked the former landlord’s stuff. I’ve packed the current landlord’s stuff, and mostly my stuff is unpacked, possibly as much as it ever will be here. I’ve been locked out twice. I’m covered in bruises, scratches and dry skin which weren’t there a week ago.  Trixy is confused.  Heck, I’m confused.  Moving around the corner it turns out is more confusing than moving towns or countries.

When you move towns or countries you have a definite sense of being somewhere new. It’s exciting. I don’t have that. My local supermarket is still my local supermarket. My local bakery is still around the corner, it’s just a different corner.  I am around the same distance from the vet, the Chinese restaurant, my favorite bars and the beach, and the ice cream parlor is that bit closer.  In other words, not a lot has changed, except that I am now paying less rent, and have less cleaning – yay to both! But right now it’s just feeling like a waste of a week or so of my life.

I was seriously thinking of moving “up north.”  The north of the island is greener, prettier, has preserved more history, and culture of all sorts is easier to source.  I am at a point where I could have made the move without too much loss of income, and rentals, I believe, are cheaper, especially inland. Austin lives kind of half way these days.  So why didn’t I make the break?

Well, friendships are the first thing which spring to mind, and all that implies.  Whilst friends are strung out all over the world these days, there is a comfort to being close to folk one knows one can rely on in a pinch, enjoy sharing mutual pastimes with and who accept you with all your faults for who you are, and, of course, reciprocating all of that.   Relocating means starting over, to some extent, that delicate process of “trying people out” to see if they are compatible with your own values, ideas and prejudices, and, natch, vice versa.  That, indeed, is one of the joys of travel, but “to everything there is a season,” and I think I’m storing up my need to challenge my expectations of friendship for some real travelling. Right now I am in a place where I need to knuckle down and get stuff done, and not think too much about anything else.

The second thought is about El Médano.  It still never ceases to amaze me in its “different” attitude to life.  It’s fifteen minutes from the more popular resorts, but it’s a world away in terms of lifestyle.  On a Saturday, when there is a small market in the town square, you can spot the British tourists who have wandered down from the major sunspots; having ambled round the stalls, they drift around the town with a air of bewilderment.  Maybe they find the almost constant winds disturbing, maybe the hippie or the surfer-dude types make them feel uncomfortable, maybe it’s that in coming to El Médano they are made to realize that all the world is not an offshoot of the UK, whatever, it seems they scurry back to their pools and pie & chips before the sun goes down. El Médano also provides me with great dog walking without too much effort (see my #walkingwithTrixy hashtag on Twitter), and with a little effort even better dog walking. It’s also that bit closer to Santa Cruz, which makes the thought of driving up there no big deal. And, like having to test and try out new folk, a move elsewhere would mean finding new shops, eateries etc, and I am not in the mood for that right now.

And – after all these years I’ve decided I hate moving, by that I mean the physical labor and the sheer boredom of it. It’s unusual to hate things you’re good at I think, but maybe I just had my fill.  In all my life there were a couple of houses I wanted to live in forever.  The first was the house in which I grew up.  Perhaps that is the inevitable longing of childhood, because for sure the place would have fallen down by now, had it not been pulled down in the late 60s.  The second bore a remarkable resemblance to the first, in that it was a converted farmhouse,  and it’s where I lived when my children were born.  Both were old houses and both were in the country, so there must be something in that, although right now, to be honest, I have a yen to live in a city, with all the conveniences and entertainments and possibilities that implies.  And so the itch is never quite scratched!

Does this mean there are no more moves in my future? Very probably not, because whilst I am grumpy about having had an utterly boring week and half, I know that somewhere else will call me one day; one day when I have the money to do something about it!

For now it’s just going to be good to get some work done, and to enjoy not having to do so much darn cleaning….normal service is about to be resumed!

How My World Rocked : Rappelling and Rage against Ageism.

 The Prologue

Austin to me: “So, when are you going to coming rappelling, mom?”  as he dumps a very heavy bag by my door.

Me:  “Hmm. When I feel a bit fitter,”  all the while thinking, “And put that on the list – along with travelling around the world, writing a best seller and learning Wolof.”…….. That would be the list of things I really want to do, but never did or will.

A few weeks later – the same question, and a similar answer, “Weeeell, I don’t really feel ready to tackle something like that yet.” I’d lost five kilos, but wasn’t/am not satisfied.

We go on in this vein for a few weeks. Me ducking the question, scared, and thinking he will drop the subject but he’s very persistent. It’s not that I don’t dream of doing this – I do, with all my heart. I’m big on dreams and not acting on them you see.

Towards the end of last week – He  has a few days vacation left over after returning from England; I have my head full of moving house and other projects, and I hear myself replying to the question yet again:

“OK, next week, then.  It will give me a break from all this stuff I have on right now,” and all the while thinking – well, actually, er …… not thinking, really, because my head was full of all that stuff………..except that I knew I had a huge need to step out of my comfort zone.

I’d come back from my trip to Mainland Spain and England energized and enthusiastic, but ennui was fast setting in. We settle on Monday, even though I am expecting to have a late night on Tuesday at Las Tablas de San Andres, and I am still barely packed for the coming weekend’s move – well, isn’t life always like this, all or nothing?

The Doing It

All that stuff manages to keep the nerves at bay until Sunday night, when, predictably, I can’t sleep.  I’m like a kid on the night before Christmas, and in the morning worry that I will be too tired to be able to throw myself over a hillside on a rope, which is how I see it.

No worries, the adrenaline kicks in on cue, and by the time we park up in Vento, Arona, I am ready, or at least as ready as I ever will be.

We turn out of the pueblo and we’re in hillbilly country, a tangle of corrugated roofs on tottering beams, where goats bleat and pigs snuffle in the dust, and indolent youths swing lazy legs as they sit on rocks watching them, and us. The skeletons of cars and vans, and other junk, litter yards.  We follow the route  as far as where most folk branch off right to walk up Roque del Conde, a very popular, though steep, walk up the distinctive hill which watches protectively over the resort coast.

We turn left instead, and quickly reach our first objective, a rocky ledge……that in layman’s terms because I don’t know if it was a small cliff or what.  We are in  Barranco del Rey, and what lies before us is beautiful, with dramatic walls of rock, and the only way to see more is to get down this ledge.  It’s good for me it comes so soon, because I don’t have time to get cold feet, instead I feel a sort of calm excitement, or is that an oxymoron?  Having confidence in my instructor/son is crucial.

Austin is very good at explaining things as he goes along, and my mind is more receptive if I understand why I am doing a thing, and how it works.  I’d like to say that I remember all the names he tells me for all the technical stuff, but I don’t, although I do understand perfectly how they work, and now it’s time to squeeze into the harness.  For a brief moment I think it’s too small and I get a “pass”, but no, it’s supposed to be really tight of course, and here I am all trussed up, helmeted and feeling distinctly unglamorous, but honestly, who’s going to see me?

Now I’m attached to the line which Austin has secured, and I’m shuffling as un-timidly as I can to the edge of the, well, the only word which comes to mind is precipice!  I don’t look directly down. That doesn’t seem like a good idea, and Austin doesn’t even mention it, so perhaps he noticed.  “Sit into the harness,” he says, and now my bum is hanging over the edge. Inelegant, but definitely exciting!

This reminds me of scuba diving in that having confidence in both your colleague/s and your equipment is key.  In the same way I knew my tank was full, and knew what to do if I lost my mask, now I know that all the bits and pieces attached to this rope from which I am suspended are fine, and I put my full weight onto it. And here I am walking backwards into thin air, or so it seems, Austin talking me through it all, “Legs a bit wider apart,” “Keep that right arm behind you.”

“Okay, hold it there,” I look up and there he is taking photos.  I try to smile. Actually it isn’t hard.  I am beginning to feel a bit euphoric, but it wouldn’t really do to whoop it up until my feet are on the ground I think.

“I think she’s got it. I think she’s got it,” keeps running through my head, then, without apparent warning the rope shifts, and I swing around, dangling for seconds, until I reconnect my feet to the face of the rock wall.  I didn’t have my legs far enough apart, and the weight wasn’t distributed quite right, but no harm is done, and I get praise for not panicking.  That’s where the understanding the equipment came in. I just did what I was supposed to do.

We continue down, and, frankly, it’s all over too soon!  I want to keep on going, but at least now it is time for a short “Whoot!”  I get a camera break too, because Austin has to go back up, and then come back down again to recover the ropes.  Looking back I am amazed.  It seems so much higher than it seemed to be whilst coming down.

It’s not a long walk to the next descent.  The way is stunning in its rawness.  I know people have been here before, but it doesn’t feel like it.  I feel as if ours might be the first footfalls in this gorge.  Enormous boulders litter the ground, spewed millennia ago from some volcano or toppled from above by wind or storms or erosion?  I don’t know nearly enough about this land it seems to me.

The next descent is not so steep, but crosses a ledge with stagnant water, the remnant of the last rains, months ago.  I manage to keep my feet out of it, and sway on down.  At the bottom there is a slight overhang, and I misjudge what to do, but no harm done.  I am on terra firma again, and crestfallen to realize that there is no more rappelling. Afterwards, I say that at this point I understand the expression “stoked”, because that’s how I feel.  Ecstatic. Thrilled.  However, more challenges and treats are in store.  I just don’t know it yet.

 

We walk some more,  marvelling at the colors in the rocks, the way the layers upon layers are so different from each other, the caves formed above us, just out of reach, the fact that so much vegetation can survive with so little water, and we come to an aqueduct.  How on earth they managed to construct this, spanning the gorge, I can’t fathom, but it’s a natural point at which to turn around.

As we clamber over slabs of rock and huge boulders I wonder what this is like when the rains come.  Is it a raging torrent just for a short span, or is it something more gentle?  We see so little rainfall in the south, and are so accustomed to the desert scenery that it’s hard to visualize.

We get back to the second descent, where we’d left the ropes in preparation for our return, and I stare up.  I was so excited about the getting down bit, that I hadn’t given a thought to how we would get back!

This is where I get a baptism in climbing techniques – only a baptism, mind you, but in the end it is a thrilling for me as the rappelling was.  I’m introduced to the jumar. It resembles a stapler with a handle.  You slide it up the rope as far as you can, and it grips like a vice and won’t slide back.  My first movement is a bit hesitant, but once I feel its strength I’m away, giddy with excitement again.

When we reach the top, Austin collects all his gear, taking care, as he always does, to make sure that the only thing we might leave behind is footprints in this pristine environment.  Sadly, even though not too many folk must come here, there is rubbish here and there they’ve left behind.

The next bit might just be my greatest triumph of the day, although I’m not sure.  We’re faced with a short but steep rock face, which Austin easily scales, pointing out hand and foot holds as he goes. I begin to follow, but there is a part which requires a stretch I just can’t see my legs making.  I retreat and look up.  It doesn’t occur to me that I’m stuck in a ravine, I’m just thinking how do I get out of this!  The answer is mind over matter, as it so often is in life!  With a rope secured to my harness I clamber up, maybe not withAustin’s grace, but without much hesitation or any mishap, Austin all the while telling me that I can do it, that I’m doing ok.  I’m stoked again. Mainly because I just didn’t think I could do anything like that.

The rest is a slightly uphill ramble back to the road and the car, where I sit on the wall, and simply let the feelings of triumph and happiness wash over me.  I’m too euphoric yet to feel tired!

These steps, carved into the rock, as Austin said, weren’t put there for hikers and climbers.  They were made years ago by folk who needed to access this area for work or food or water. Such was daily life once upon a time.

The Aftermath

 

I wake the next morning with a bubbly sense of well-being.  I am more aware of my body in which I have new-found confidence. I am more aware of the mental stretch it took too.  I am more aware of having stretched my comfort zone by a long way.  I have the feeling that life is just full of possibilities, and that I should be off looking for them. I feel as if there is no limit to what I can do if I have the confidence.

When I began this blog, or more precisely, around two years ago, when it became a more important part of my life I imagined that it would be half and half;  half travel/Tenerife stuff and half about defying age.  The latter is a topic dear to my heart, that’s for sure, but I don’t think I’ve written about it nearly as much as I thought I would, since I became so absorbed in various projects.

I’m a baby boomer.  All through my life my generation has set the pace, not just by the sheer volume of our numbers. We defied conventions in music, fashion and politics. Sure, we weren’t the first generation to do that, but we did a job of historic proportions.

In equally defiant mood, after all these years, and approaching my 65^th birthday this month, I intend to use this blog to address this issue of ageism more than I have so far.  I am infuriated by the perception that life is over at 65, and I accuse my peers of fostering this idea just as much as younger folk, but right now, although my personal triumph was a little over a week ago (I survived the night of Las Tablas, and am still in the process of moving house – well, there is just too much else going on to waste time in putting all my books on the shelf!)  I still want to wallow in my joy, but……look out world, here I come! Oh, and I began the novel – thanks to Guy……..I am blessed with sons who believe in me!