Animal Crackers – the Fiesta de San Antonio Abad

Dancer from El Hierro

A Yorkie riding a pony; an iguana squaring up to two bulldogs, a donkey wearing a straw bonnet and a mongrel in full traditional Canarian costume…you really don’t need to take mind altering narcotics when you live in Tenerife.

The weekend had been bizarre enough when we returned home from watching Man Utd beat Spurs in the FA Cup to find a rock concert taking place in the neighbour’s garden. The band wasn’t half bad either. After an initial set of enthusiastic Spanish rock they switched to rock and did a pretty good job of Pink Floyd, Clapton and Hendrix. So sitting listening to a rock concert from the comfort of our house was a pretty surreal start to the weekend.

Sunday we dragged ourselves out of bed (the concert didn’t finish until 2am) to head to Buenavista del Norte for the Fiesta de San Antonio Abad. Last year we had enjoyed the equivalent fiesta in La Matanza, so we were interested to see how Buenavista’s would compare.

It was a pleasant day, the sun making intermittent appearances which immediately scored better then La Matanza’s which, lying quite a way up the hillside, is more prone to cloud at this time of year.

I’d been expecting a bigger event than the fiesta in La Matanza, so was surprised to find that it was quite a bit smaller and there didn’t seem to be nearly as many animals. Today’s El Dia reported that there were over 1000 head of cattle. Personally, I reckon that whoever was doing the counting must have been partaking of generous quantities of the beer and wine from the jam-packed stalls and bars all around the town and was seeing three of everything.

Unusual opponents

However, numbers aside, it was a completely enchanting fiesta with a wonderfully welcoming atmosphere. The Teno Massif provided a dramatic backdrop to the fields where the livestock were gathered and the town of Buenavista was looking at its best; bright streamers lined the roads and antique wooden balconies were decorated with wicker baskets adorned with fruit and vegetables.

Small groups of musicians strummed their timples outside nearly every bar, whilst dancers in white costumes with twirling skirts, reminiscent of the Turkish national dress, whirled to the haunting pito herreño (flute) and drum riffs from the island of El Hierro.

Whilst the ‘show’ animals (horses, cattle, goats, dogs) looked magnificent, it was the fringe events which I found the most interesting. There were nearly as many animal ‘spectators’ as there were human ones and when a small crowd gathered in one spot it was a clue that something different was going on. The most bizarre of these being the iguana squaring up to two bulldogs who barked and strained at their leashes…until the iguana responded by lumbering slowly toward them which shut them up big time.

Love me, love my python

As always, everybody was only too happy to pose for photos; the event is a photographer’s dream with any number of potential impossibly cute ‘greeting card’ type shots. I particularly liked the Yorkie riding the pony which seems to be an annual favourite. But cats in scarves, bunnies in bows, kid goats with ribbons around their throats, donkeys in straw boaters and a girl doing an impression of Salma Hayak in ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ with a python around her neck all added an ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ element to the whole affair.

Despite many animals wearing more clothes than some of their owners, the only uncomfortable looking creature I noticed all day was a cat in a scarf, but then cats don’t really do social events do they?

Buenavista del Norte is on the Hidden Depths route of Island Drives

Nicole Kidman taught me How to Chop Wood

I’ve mentioned before, but our wood pile is going to struggle to see us through the winter nights. Down to some negligent wood management on my part I have to confess.

We’ve got a decent amount left; trouble is I only cut it this year. Now I’ve been told that you have to leave wood for at least a year, preferably two before it’s ready to be thrown on the fire.

OH YEAH. So if that’s the case, how come there are so many forest fires then???

We have had some seriously hard blocks of wood which have lain, taunting me for the last few years. These guys are the Vin Diesel of the log world. In fact I suspect that they’re not wood, they’re iron. Taking an axe to them is like taking an axe to the body of a tank.  I swing the axe it…it connects with the wood…there’s a loud clang…the axe bounces backwards sending a judder through my body a la Wile E. Coyote style…there’s not a nick in the wood.

I’ve even taken a chainsaw to them and I can tell you I’m lucky to have escaped with limbs still attached. So they’ve stayed uncut and unburnt, snickering at me from the woodpile, for nearly five years.

More than a movie - a guide to rural living

Until we watched ‘Cold Mountain’ for the umpteenth time earlier this week.  Loved it as always, but this time I noticed a tiny detail which had hitherto escaped me. It was a scene where Nicole Kidman was chopping wood. She swung her axe and embedded it in the log, but instead of doing what I always do (which seems bordering on stupid in retrospect) which is raise the axe and bring it down again, hoping to land it in the exact same spot (a rare occurrence), she simply hammered the head of the axe until the wood split in two.

‘Sacre bleu,’ I thought. ‘Can it be so simple?’

So this afternoon I got out my axe and my hammer, grabbed a block of the hardest wood in the universe and brought the axe down on it. It barely made an impression, but I took up my hammer and gave the head of the axe a thwack…and hey presto, the wood fell apart as if it was balsa wood. Ten minutes later and the pile was reduced to burn sized pieces…incredible.

So there you go, not only is Cold Mountain a wonderful film, it’s educational as well.

Weather in Tenerife – We’re in a State of Orange Alert

The seething cauldron on Puerto's seafront

For the past few days we’ve been put on a state of alert in Tenerife, with warnings ranging from yellow (low risk) to orange (high enough risk to warrant sitting up and taking notice).

Whilst most of the inclement weather has been confined to high winds and black ice in the highland areas on the cumbres and around Mount Teide, at sea level there’s been very little in the way of noticeable bad weather to report.

In reality what we’ve experienced her on the north west coast was one day which would have been classed as a typical dreary autumn day in the UK.
Although when I mentioned to a Spanish friend that the weather was like a British autumn day, she laughed.

“Not quite,” she corrected me.  “Maybe more like a day at the end of summer, beginning of autumn in England.”

I suppose she had a point. The coldest day was still hovering around the 20 degrees mark.

However, there’s also been an orange band around Tenerife on the weather map on the Spanish Meteorological website and it’s been at the coast where the weather has been at its most spectacular.
The other night we were watching television when I became aware of a loud rumbling. It sounded as though Mount Teide had decided to relocate and had chosen where our house stood as a prime spot.

“What the hell was that?” I jumped up from my seat and went to the front door.

We’re probably about 3 kilometres inland, yet the sound of the waves crashing on the shoreline was deafening. I half expected to see the crest of a Tsunami appearing above the palms (note to self: stop watching ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ during winter months).

Atlantic rollers at Punto del Viento

It was only when we went into Puerto de la Cruz to watch Man United initially coast, then nearly self destruct against Derby in the Carling Cup semi-final last night, that we were able to witness how impressive (or frightening depending on your point of view) the sea was.

The Atlantic was putting on a right old show. Waves which must have been 5-6 metres high were making a mockery of the sea defences and crashing over the seawall which runs the length of the town’s free car park. Understandably there weren’t many cars in the car park, so we were a bit nervous leaving the car.

Incredibly there were plenty of ‘thrillseekers’ walking along the harbour wall to get a closer look at the waves. Most looked liked visitors, clearly unaware that the Atlantic likes the odd sacrifice every now and again and it’s not uncommon for people to be occasionally swept off the wall when the sea is throwing a wobbly.

Even the normally sheltered harbour was a seething cauldron and the little fishing boats which normally spend the night on the pebbly beach had been pulled to higher ground.

The best place to watch the Atlantic when it’s putting on a show like this is at Punto del Viento. Where from the safety of being thirty feet above the sea, you get a free show as huge rollers sweep past Plaza Europa (last night above the level of the plaza itself) and crash into the rocks below where you stand, filling the air all along the promenade with a fine mist.

This is an 'orange' alert?

Thankfully the car hadn’t ‘gone amphibian’ by the time we returned, so with Man U winning and nature putting on a free show it was a good night all round.

The orange alert is still in place this morning, but the sun’s shining and although the waves still look pretty impressive, they don’t look much bigger than they usually do at this time of year…and the surfers at Playa Martiánez seem happy to have some big boys to play with.

The Most Ridiculous Excuse Ever…

When it comes to a philosophical outlook, I find my thoughts more in accordance with the Reverend D. Wayne Love than Carlos Castaneda.

My neighbour, Jesús is more the other way around, although I’m not sure if he knows who Carlos Castaneda is.

If he’s not feeling 100%, it’s never because he’s picked up a bug, or eaten something which didn’t agree with him or anything like that. With him any illness is usually to do with his energy lines being wonky, or the planets being misaligned or some such tree hugging twaddle.

Usually when he comes out with this, we nod for a few moments then say something like:

“So, it was nothing to do with you letting the dog lick your face moments after it had just eaten that cat shit then?”

A statement which on occasion is not a million miles away from the truth.

He’s had a bit of a lively few days has our Jesús. His hours have been all over the place (late nights leading to late rising, leading to later nights and so on) and I don’t think he’s been eating much. So what happened when he popped up for a visit on Tuesday morning wasn’t too much of a surprise.

The sun was out and Andy was sitting in the garden writing. I was concentrating on creating a map on Adobe Illustrator for the first of our new walking guides for Tenerife when Jesús sauntered through the front door saying he wanted to ‘chill’ for a bit, so I didn’t pay Jesús much attention. It didn’t take him long to get the message and he wandered out to join Andy in the garden.

Within a few moments he was back, holding his mouth. Before I could ask him what was up, he was puking up in our toilet, where he spent the best part of the next half hour before emerging looking waxy and with beads of sweat on his forehead.

So what was the problem with our amigo, Jesús?

Dodgy chorizo? Too much booze the night before? Stomach bug? The culmination of burning the candle at both ends?

Not on your Nelly. No, that would be too simple.

Jesús’ answer to the question “What do you think caused it?” was classic.

It was this:

“I think the sun got into my chakra…”

I think the sun got into my chakra!!! I ask you?

Far too much damn consciousness expansion going on there if you ask me.

Working on Tenerife – A clue to the ‘Mas o Menos’ culture?

To reach the main road into Puerto de la Cruz we have to drive through banana plantations. In theory it’s along a tarmac road, well it might have been once, but that was, as they say in best ‘Star Wars’ fashion, a long time ago.

These days, somewhat like myself, it’s looking a bit the worse for wear. Having banana trucks trundle along it on a regular basis has left the road strewn with pot holes and negotiating it requires a certain amount of weaving to avoid wrecking the suspension. God forbid that the Guardia Civil are ever behind me as they’d never believe I hadn’t been at the hard stuff if they were witness to my attempts at avoiding the mini craters which litter the surface.

However, every so often a road crew from the local council comes along and fills the holes in with big blobs of tar (clearly no attempt at a long term solution) making driving on it a wee bit easier, for a short time at least.

After the rain at the beginning of December, the holes had multiplied and deepened to the extent that driving along the road was akin to riding a bucking bronco, so last week a crew had obviously been despatched to fill in the holes.

They had completed half of the road by the time we drew level with their truck at about 10.00 am and had taken a break for second breakfast (they follow the hobbit philosophy on Tenerife).
Applying the sort of common sense that is only too prevalent here, the road gang were sitting on the wall directly opposite their truck. Now the banana road isn’t really wide enough for two cars, let alone a car and a truck, so I had to slow down to a crawl to avoid crushing any toes on my way past. This gave me time to have a nosey at what this particular crew’s second breakfast consisted of. It also gave me an insight into:

1. Why jobs on Tenerife can take an eternity to finish and…
2. Why the workmanship may be a tad on the casual side.

Because at least two of the workmen were ‘spliffing in’.

When I mentioned it to my neighbour, he was amused at my astonishment.

“It’s normal,” he laughed. “When I was working laying an athletics track in a sports stadium once, we spent most of the day drinking beer and smoking joints.”

After five years, the difference between the work ethic I was used to in Britain and the casual approach to the work ethic here still amazes me.

But it does explain a lot.

You have to laugh…or go insane. Some days it’s a close call.

The Whiskas Chronicles: Consorting with the Enemy

Animal politics, don’t they just do your head in?

Our neighbour has been visiting the UK for a few days. Before she went, she asked us to feed the Disney Gang and the assorted collection of cats that hang about the big house. I think Jesús might have been a bit hurt that she hadn’t asked him as he generally spends more time with the animals (well the dogs anyway) than we do. However, he wasn’t around when she asked and anyway he has a more random approach to feeding times than we do (if you know animals, you’ll know that disrupted routines are enough to send them scurrying to the nearest canine/feline psychiatrist).

Anyway, it gave us the opportunity to get to know the Disney Gang a bit better as it seems that even after 5 years, they still think we’re intruders and bark at us every time we walk up the path to our house (evidence for feline prosecutors – should that be prosecatters – in the ‘dogs are much dumber than us’ argument).

At first it was really nice. The cats, being cats, treated us – once they spotted the bag of cat food in our hands – like long lost buddies who had cat magnets attached to our bodies.
The Disney Gang were a different kettle of fish. Timber capitulated immediately with a goofy ‘feed me and I’ll be your best friend’ approach. Mismo was never a problem anyway and will be pals with anyone who pats him, bless him. Blackie’s always been reserved, lingering close by – just out of touch. But Poppy, Tessie and Nani proved more wary and initially growled quietly when we came to fill their bowls.

However after a couple of days they all realised that we weren’t going to rob the house, or do whatever unwanted intruders get up to in a dog’s mind and accepted us, even allowing some reserved patting. Everything in the garden was rosy until animal politics, in the shape of a white cat with half a tail, got in the way.

Whiskas had obviously heard our voices and clearly didn’t like the friendly tone (the tone that he feels should be exclusively reserved for him) that was being used to talk to the dogs. What was worse though was:

a) That we were feeding the enemy and

b) We were feeding them before we fed him!

From his vantage point on the roof of the dog’s shed he made his grievance known – loudly.
If Whiskas kept his protestations to just the verbals it might have been headache inducing, but we could have lived with it. However this is Whiskas we’re talking about.

In his head he obviously reasoned that if food was being put down by us, he had an automatic right to it. He’s too much of a bricker to tackle the dogs, but the half dozen or so cats were a different matter. He jumped down from the roof and sauntered over to the cat’s feeding area where, amazingly, the other cats backed off in deference to the arrogant bugger. Within seconds he had his head firmly entrenched in one of the bowls. yet still he was going to scoff theirs before coming back to our house and demanding his usual dinner.

Needless to say, the greedy git was chased from the premises (not doing his superior image any good with the other animals); the members of the Disney Gang were only too happy to help out with this task.

Being ‘escorted from the premises’ hasn’t prevented him from returning and trying it on at every feeding time though and we are well and truly in the bad books for our unforgiveable behaviour.

Exclusivity is very important to Whiskas. Not that this has stopped him from turning up at his usual feeding time. Although he is prone to literally biting the hand that feeds him, he doesn’t do it when he’s about to be fed. So I suppose we’ll just have to put up with the shenanigans and the growls of disapproval as he leaves our house each night (tellingly he only growls after he has been fed) until our neighbour returns and everything in the animal world at La Rosaleda returns to normal.

Traffic Jams in the Real Tenerife

The other day whilst sitting in the car, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, unable to move forward due to congested traffic filling every inch of the road in front of me, I couldn’t help but think back to the tedious journey I had to make to and from work every day back in Manchester.

Distance wise it was only about 13 kilometres from our house in Stockport to my place of work in Salford Quays overlooking the Theatre of Dreams (aka Old Trafford). However it took about an hour each way to make this relatively short journey seeing as how most of it was spent inching along in queue of traffic like a sloth with an exceptionally low metabolism.

Anyway, I compared the two situations as I waited for the oncoming traffic to filter past me so that I could get on my way. Unlike traffic jams in Manchester, this one left me with a smile on my face at the little surprises that any one day living in the ‘Real Tenerife’ can throw up.

I can't be a road hog...I'm a goat!!!

These guys are my neighbour’s way of clearing the weeds from one of the fields behind our house.

Notice there aren’t any gates into the field, but with this lot that doesn’t pose much of a problem.

Christmas on Tenerife – New Year’s Eve

There’s only one place to be if you’re in a traditional town on Tenerife on New Year’s Eve and that’s the main plaza.

'OOOOOOOH....AAAAAAH'

Our French neighbour had suggested we go out for a meal on New Year’s Eve, which sounded good…as long as we could be in Plaza del Charco in Puerto de la Cruz and beside the harbour by midnight.

We had initially planned to ask Jesús to come to the square with us, but his sprained ankle took him completely out of the picture; there was no way he could have made the walk into town. So a meal with Nicole and Jean Louis it was.

As we wandered around to Nicole’s house, we passed Jesús. He was sitting beside a little fire he’d built. Although I felt a wee bit sorry for him, sitting there on his own, he seemed happy enough…anyway he wasn’t exactly on his own, he had his adoring fans with him – AKA the Disney gang.

Jean Louis had chosen the restaurant Los Gemelos. They’d eaten there many times and recommended the food. If a French person, especially one who was involved with the catering industry in France, recommends a place, you can be pretty sure it’ll be hunky dory. Jean Louis also liked Los Gemelos because they didn’t take advantage of the fact that it was New Year’s Eve and hike up the prices.

DJ dance area

Another good sign when we arrived at the restaurant was that it was full of Canarians. Although probably every restaurant was full of Canarians as everybody heads into town in their finest gear to celebrate Nochevieja (quite the opposite from the family orientated Nochebuena).

Despite being packed to the gunwales, the staff were very efficient and meals were cooked perfectly to order. It was simple Canarian cuisine, but beautifully cooked and the portions were Desperate Dan sized. Andy and Jean Louis had steaks, Nicole a salmon fillet and I had pork chops. I rarely order pork chops in a restaurant. I’ve got this daft thing about it being a bit naff – a bit Sun reader on holiday, even though I think pork is one of the tastiest of meats.

Everything was going well until there was a slight misunderstanding as midnight drew closer. Jean Louis had been under the impression that we were going to spend New Year in the restaurant, so wasn’t keen to leave especially as the waiter had brought us a 4 little bags of ‘lucky grapes’ to be downed at midnight and a bottle of sidra. By this time the restaurant was near empty and the idea of spending New Year in a quiet restaurant as opposed to amongst the buzzing crowd at the firework display on the harbour didn’t appeal.
Andy suggested that Nicole and Jean Louis stay and have the sidra and that we’d meet them in the square later.

The lonely walk home

However, Nicole wanted to see the fireworks as well, so after a brief and slightly heated debate between the two of them we all left for the harbour.

I hope that they both felt it was the right decision. Despite the recession, there seemed to be more people than usual around the harbour and plaza and the usual Latino band were belting it out for all they were worth. At midnight we swallowed our grapes and then watched the firework display. This year’s was shorter than previous years because of the ‘crisis’ or ‘creeesees’ as they say here, but it still elicited plenty of delighted ‘oooohs’ and ‘aaaahs’. Jean Louis and Nicole stayed for a few dances and then headed for home, leaving us to wander with our couple of bottles of cava from the live stage to the DJ dance area checking out the music and also what stylish creations revellers were wearing this year.

At about 03.30 (an early one for us) we decided it was time to set off on the long trek back home away from the partying crowds, through La Paz and onto the quiet dark secluded roads through the banana plantation.

Incidentally, we stopped briefly in Plaza Iglesia where there’s always an alternative New Year gathering by some of the town’s younger scene (all in gowns and DJs of course) and as I was taking some photographs a young Tinerfeño tapped me on the arm and asked me to take a photo of him and his friends. The young Tinerfeños are always asking to have their photos taken at fiestas which really amuses me, cause it’s unlikely that they’ll ever see the picture. So just in case my unknown young friends in Plaza Iglesia stumble across this blog – here’s your photo.

Feliz año nuevo...whoever you are

Christmas on Tenerife – The bit in between

Normally we go for a long walk on Boxing Day, but as we had our friend Jo, en route from La Gomera back to the UK, and her dad, Brian arriving the following day we had spent much of the day cleaning, interrupted by a trip to the pub to watch a rather mundane Manchester United huff and puff their way to another 1-0 victory.

Fecindidad and Rainbow

The ferry from La Gomera links up with a free bus service to Santa Cruz, so we arranged to meet Jo and Brian in the capital. Jo hadn’t seen much of Santa Cruz and her dad’s only experience of Tenerife had been staying in Los Gigantes, so it was a great opportunity to show them around the friendly city.

It was a glorious day and the city was looking at its best as we strolled through the La Noria district up to Parque García Sanabria, a ‘must see’ for visitors to the capital. One of our favourite sculptures in the park is ‘La Fecundidad’; however, Brian made us view the voluptuous dame in a completely different light by commenting:
“She looks as though she’s on the toilet.”
I did manage to capture a photo that I’d been after for some time – a shot of Fecundidad with a rainbow visible in the spray at her thighs.

Lounging by the pool

After the park we wandered down to the newly refurbished Plaza España and basked for a short time on the smooth concrete shore of the plaza’s stunning new man-made pool, before having a quick look at what was left of the Castillo de San Cristóbal in the newly opened ‘mini’ museum underneath the plaza’s pool and heading back to the car park via the colourful Sunday rastro (flea market). Almost since the day we arrived on Tenerife, Santa Cruz has been undergoing facelift after facelift, so it was the first time we’d actually seen it without cranes, metal fences and convoys of construction machinery and I have to report, it is looking a gem of a city.

The following morning we took Jo and Brian to Tenerife’s most noble town, La Orotava. It’s only a five minute drive from the house and is one of the places we considered buying a house when we first moved here. Anyone who’s been to Tenerife and not visited this town hasn’t really experienced the ‘real’ Tenerife. I could wander its quaint old streets for hours and have done many times. It was immensely satisfying to show the town to two people who were as interested and fascinated by its quirks and grand architecture as we are. A rest stop for a barraquito at Casa Lercaro threw up a quirky photo opportunity as one of the mansion’s peacocks showed us exactly where the phrase ‘as proud as a peacock’ originated.

Proud as a peacock

In the afternoon we wandered through the fair, past the harbour and into the streets of Puerto de la Cruz’ old town, stopping for a cervesa at the Ebano Café – one of the most pleasant spots for people watching in the town.
Jo and Brian are also big Man Utd fans and as they were playing Middlesbrough that evening, we ate an early dinner at Casa Mediterranea in one of the cobbled side streets behind Plaza Iglesia. We’ve been meaning to try this small restaurant for years; its menu has always looked interesting and a bit different from the normal traditional Canarian fare. The food was cooked to order by the restaurants personality Italian chef with Elton John glasses. Andy chose lasagne, Jo asparagus and cheese tortellini, Brian opted for steak on the rocks and I had tuna in a tomato, anchovy and olive sauce. Turned out he was an Inter Milan fan. As Man Utd play Inter next in the Champions League it was just as well he didn’t find out we were reds fans till after he’d cooked the meal which incidentally lived up to our expectations.

After enduring another 1-0 win for Man Utd we headed home and at Jo’s insistence (they were catching the 8.00 am bus from Puerto the following day), we celebrated my birthday at a minute past midnight by having a couple of shots of mango schnapps which one of Jo’s neighbours had concocted in his still. Can’t say I could taste the mango, but it was pleasant enough even if it did contribute to a groggy farewell to Jo and Brian at the bus station early next morning.

Christmas on Tenerife – Christmas Day

Somewhere around 10.30 we woke up. It was a beautiful day and Mount Teide had a surprise for us. It had snowed during the night on the peak, so we officially had a white Christmas to go with the turkey, the blue skies and the 75 degrees temperature.
Most of the day was spent preparing the Xmas dinner, drinking bucks fizz and listening to the sort of music we like – start off with a bit of mellow Miles Davis and eventually built up to some Faithless and Leftfield at the height of the cooking.

The dishevelled invalid recovering on his makeshift hospital bed

We had mulled over whether to invite our neighbour, Jesús to have dinner with us, but there was no sign of life at his house and anyway he’d announced a couple of days previously that he didn’t really ‘do’ Christmas, so it was just us and Whiskas, who wasn’t much company as he’d been in a fight during the night (no peace and goodwill to all creatures in his philosophy then) and had damaged his right paw so that he could hardly put any weight on it. He was in a bit of a sorry state, so feeling sorry for him, we made a hospital bed out of a cushion and left him to sleep off his wounds (which took him coincidentally till almost exactly the point where the turkey was being carved).

The nice thing about when it’s just the two of you is that you can prepare the dinner at your own pace, with no pressure to keep to a strict timetable. By about 16.30 we sat down to roast turkey with mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, roasted sweet potato (here’s a tip: parsnips are difficult to get hold off here, but sweet potatoes aren’t and taste quite similar) broccoli, carrot and chestnut and sweet potato puree, chipolatas (in this case small local sausages), home made stuffing and gravy followed by some very light home made meringue with a variety of fruits and crème freche.

Andy's homemade dessert - perfect after a heavy dinner

We had no sooner scoffed the lot, cleaned up and were looking forward to a fat and happy snooze on the sofa when Jesús appeared on the path limping badly.

For some reason he’d been jumping about in the driving range – he said because he’d felt happy – and had gone over on his ankle (same leg as Whiskas) which was now swollen up like a balloon. He’d also been invited by Sorraya, the receptionist at the golf course, to share Nochebuena dinner with her family, but that hadn’t gone very well. Something to do with Jesús’ inappropriate choice of clothing (looking a bit like a refugee wearing kung fu pants)and some mumbo jumbo about the main dish being lamb and Jesús thinking that it was some sort of a sign connected to him accidentally burning a lamb dinner when he was working as a chef the other week. Anyway to cut a long story short, he didn’t feel that it had been a great success and was looking as sorry for himself as the cat.

After Jesús told us all about his Nochebuena he hobbled back to his house and we collapsed into the sofa to slob out and spend what was left of the day watching Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (okay for escapist non-challenging entertainment, which was just about all that we could handle, but not the best of the Indiana Jones movies).