Win a Holiday and Help Build an Orphanage – from Tenerife to South Africa, with love.

I always think Christmas is a time for children. The excitement of waiting for Santa and the certain knowledge that magic really does exist in the world.
I have precious memories of Christmas morning; waking at first light to see the outline of the presents at the bottom of the bed; my brothers running into my [...]

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Tested to the Limit

Yesterday was a nerve wracking day.
It’s been two years since the car was last tested for the ITV – the Spanish equivalent of an MOT- and it couldn’t be put off any longer.
Last week Jack rang the test centre and made the appointment; 3.30pm on Monday 30th November. So at midday yesterday preparations began in [...]

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Quentin Tarantino and the Art of Communication

It was one of those perfectly fortuitous sets of circumstances that very rarely come your way.
The Tenerife Espacio de las Artes (TEA) in Santa Cruz were screening Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds in its original language at 7pm and we were collecting Jo from Santa Cruz bus station at around 9.30/10pm. So we were off to [...]

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Is there anything more romantic than a big moon?

Heading into Puerto de la Cruz last night, we arrived at San Telmo to be stopped in our tracks by the sight of the moon. Larger than a Star Trek holodeck creation, it hung over the horizon in the perfectly still, cloudless night casting its luminous glow over the La Orotava Valley and the Ocean.
It [...]

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Speaking Spanglish

We were just admiring the magnificent view of Mount Teide from the putting green outside our gate this morning when José and Glenn came wandering past. There followed a short conversation during which each showed due deference to the other’s native tongue.  So Glenn, Jack and I spoke in Spanish and José answered in English.
It [...]

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The Changing Face of Tenerife.

Hiking in the hills above the south coast last weekend, the landscape was dominated by dried up terraces overgrown with brown weeds where only the lethal leaves of giant Agave plants punctuated the arid monotony.
A derelict farmhouse told its own story. Set into a hidden valley with the mountains at its back and the Atlantic [...]

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Parking in Santa Cruz – or ‘is she really going to blog about a car park?!’

I know it’s a bit sad to blog about a car park and if you live in London or LA or New York and consider what I am describing to be practically archaic nowadays, cut me some slack. I live on Tenerife and finding anything here that works this efficiently just has to be recorded.
Please [...]

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Finding Gold in Tenerife

Last night, as Jack was taking the homemade quiche out of the oven, I went outside to set the table on the terrace and found that the world had turned to a vibrant, rich, rose hue. The white walls of our house were luminous salmon pink and beyond, the Orotava Valley shone like molten gold.
When [...]

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Tenerife Fiestas – Straight from the Heart in Tejina

Getting anywhere for midday on a Sunday seems for some reason to be a tall order in our house and yesterday was no exception. A late night followed by a late morning and a leisurely Sunday breakfast and before I knew it the clock was scraping towards the eleven hand and Jack was standing at [...]

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Tenerife’s Health System or TiT in action

Since finally managing to register for my tarjeta de sanitoria (health card), the process of getting my repeat prescriptions has been fairly straightforward, apart from one small glitch a couple of months ago when I rang the central number for an appointment only to be told that I had been assigned to a different doctor.
Which [...]

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