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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

Tenerife Dreams

“Sweet dreams are made of this.
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the World and the seven seas;
Everybody’s looking for something.”

If you’re thinking of moving to Tenerife, ask yourself this; “What am I looking for?”
We were invited to a barbeque last weekend, in an exquisite contemporary villa in the south of the island. It was a sumptuous [...]

Read Full Post »

Things to do on a cloudy day in Tenerife

I noticed on the news yesterday that Lufthansa airlines were offering compensation to holidaymakers who got rainy days while they were away.
I reckon it’s a fairly safe bet that the UK won’t be one of the 36 destinations for which the insurance company will pay out, but I guess Tenerife might be. The chances of [...]

Read Full Post »

Driving on Tenerife – it’s better than sex

A new survey conducted in May by Confused.com has come up with some rather surprising statistics for what Brits get up to in their cars. Apparently, of the 2000 motorists surveyed, 47% of Southwest drivers admitted to having sex in their car, hotly pursued by the South East (44%) and Scotland (43%).
It’s not entirely clear [...]

Read Full Post »