Christmas on Tenerife

I think it’s fair to say that our first couple of Christmases on Tenerife were not quite what I’d hoped they’d be.
The first year we’d only been here for a couple of months when Jack’s family descended on us en masse – bless them. Not wanting Jack and I to be lonely on our first [...]

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Bitter and Twisted – a great night out in Puerto de la Cruz

As usual, time was way ahead of schedule leaving us breathless in its wake.
Trying to herd visitors through the streets of Puerto de la Cruz on a Saturday night when there’s so much to see, was proving a difficult task. We’d been told that if we didn’t get to the Majestic before about 9.15pm we’d [...]

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Clash of the Titans and Taking the Piss

It’s a big week for Tenerife. It seems our little island in the sun is making headline web news, some of it exciting and some of it, well…embarrassing.
There’s been a buzz about the place over Google’s launch of its new street map which enables you to see places up close and personal. It’s a fabulous [...]

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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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Having a Bad Day

Last week we had a meeting in the south of the island at 10am and not being sure how bad the morning traffic into Santa Cruz would be, we decided to set off by 8am. It’s a journey that would normally take us just over an hour so we were erring on the generous side.
At [...]

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Tenerife Wild Life

A couple of nights ago Jack and I were watching a video of our last trip to Sri Lanka (sad I know, but until you’ve lived with Spanish TV for 6 years, don’t knock it) and we were reminded of the incredible variety of birds and animals that you find on that island paradise. Kingfishers, [...]

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From Tie-dye to Black Leather – Saturday Night in Tenerife

It’s a weird thing about Los Silos. Venture there during the day and you’ll find a sleepy, picturesque village with an Art Nouveau bandstand, a church that looks like it’s constructed out of icing sugar and egg whites; and beautifully restored traditional architecture. But go there for one of its fiestas and you’ll find yourself [...]

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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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Managing the Wood Supply, or how to build your cat a pine staircase.

One of the delights of living in the north of Tenerife is that, although we’re now into our fifth month of proper summer (glossing swiftly over September’s propensity to cloud over in the afternoons at the moment) and looking forward to another six weeks or so of it, we do still have seasons.
With November comes [...]

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