We love chillies, the spicier the better, but for a couple of years after we moved here we struggled to buy them on a regular basis. When we mentioned this to a friend, the only surprise she registered was that we’d even bothered to try to buy them.
“There’s no point in supermarkets selling them; by the time you find a supermarket which sells them on Tenerife you could’ve grown enough to keep your mouth tingling for months.”

She was absolutely spot on. A €0.60 pack of seeds and a flower pot and now we’ve got more chillies than we know what to do with. Every day I harvest a few more and the next day, it seems that another five, three-inch long ones have taken their place.

Last week we used them in Moroccan Chicken, Black Bean Charros and Parsi Eggs. This week we’ll use them in Indian Chickpea Salad, Falafal and Hot Pasta Salsa. It’s wonderful to have such a stock of these aggressive little fellows, but we’re running out of ideas for recipes, so if anyone knows any particularly good ones, we’d really appreciate it.

The sight of these two ‘angels’ making their way home through Puerto del Cruz brought a smile to the faces of everyone they passed.

]]> http://tenerifevirgins.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/its-a-long-way-to-heaven/feed/ dragojac It's a long way to Heaven http://tenerifevirgins.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/okay%e2%80%a6what-exactly-do-you-mean-by-%e2%80%9cwe-love-walking%e2%80%9d/ http://tenerifevirgins.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/okay%e2%80%a6what-exactly-do-you-mean-by-%e2%80%9cwe-love-walking%e2%80%9d/#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 13:12:48 +0000 dragojac http://tenerifevirgins.wordpress.com/?p=119

I’m getting wise. Not in a general sense, that would be far too much to expect, I mean in some specific little unimportant areas. In this case, the British and walking.

Returning from the south of the island last week, we stopped off at the quiet little hamlet of Punto de Abona to eat our bocadillos overlooking the pretty little beach. On opening the car door, I was nearly sent spinning into the sky like a wayward kite. The east coast has an almost constant breeze, but today it was stronger than normal.
“Maybe it’ll be more sheltered at the beach?” Andy suggested.
“No it isn’t,” before I had the chance to reply, an English voice beat me to it from the inside of a car parked next to us. “It’s like a sandstorm down there.”
The English couple in the car had the same idea as us, but had been forced by the wind to have their lunch inside their car.

We decided to do the same and got back inside the car and rolled down the windows. It turned out that the couple were staying in Puerto de la Cruz and were driving around the island stopping off at places which took their fancy. Good on them. We chatted for a moment about places on the island before the woman mentioned that they enjoyed walking. It was at this point that I made the mistake which I’ve made numerous times in the past; I assumed that when she said they liked walking, she meant they actually liked walking.
“Really?” As someone who loves exploring Tenerife on foot, and there are some fantastic places for walking on Tenerife, I’m always interested in hearing others’ views on where they’ve discovered. “Where have you walked?”
“Oh…” the woman thought for a second. “Along the promenade at Los Cristianos…”
She went on to name a couple of similar such ‘walks’.

My mother-in-law and late father-in-law were exactly the same. Gerry would regularly announce:
“Marge and I love walking; we walk everywhere.”
But take him out for a walk that lasted more than a kilometre, or involved going downhill or worse, uphill and the big man would raise an eyebrow and look down at me and say:
“Now why the fek would we be wanting to go up there?”

What they really meant, like lots of other people, was that they enjoyed a good stroll. Nothing wrong with that, but if you happen to be on holiday on Tenerife and mention to some stranger that you love walking, then proceed to list strolls along various town’s seafront don’t be surprised when they let out a scream – that’ll be me.

After the end of Los Realejos’ Flypa 08 festival on Sunday, we left El Socorro beach and headed back to the car, parked about a kilometre up a steep hill on a semi-circular road which also served as the approach to the main road.
As we drew closer to where we’d parked, we could see that chaos had descended on the area. Cars seemed to be pointing in all directions, bonnets to boots, boots to boots and bonnets to bonnets. A quite incredible feat of engineering had clearly taken place. The upshot being that nobody seemed to be able to manoeuvre anywhere. In the middle of chaos central stood a bewildered policeman. We wandered past and soon found the source of the problem, right next to our car. A large minibus was stuck in between two lines of parked cars, unable to go forward because of a badly parked white Berlingo (what is it about Berlingo drivers?) and unable to reverse because of the trail of cars behind.

A portly, agitated woman blocked my way.
“Do you have a mobile phone?” She asked in Spanish, spoken with a strong German accent.
“Err, yes.”
“Then phone the police,” she demanded.
I pointed to the policeman thirty yards behind us, who had acquired a growing number of advisors.
“I think they might already know about the problem,” I replied, leaving her to her flustering.
It’s interesting the way different nationalities react to the little frustrations living in Tenerife can throw up. The Spanish, shrug heir shoulders and adopt a philosophical approach, whereas the Germans, and to a slightly lesser extent the British, huff and puff and make outraged noises.

The minibus’ manoeuvring was taking it within inches of our Fiat Punto, which although not contributing to the problem, was far too close to the action for my liking. When we’d parked, there’d only been parked cars on one side of the road. Now they lined both sides making progress for anything bigger than…well bigger than a Punto, difficult.

No matter how carefully he eased forward, the mini bus driver couldn’t make enough space for the bus to pass. Then somebody on the bus must have had a brainwave. Its doors hissed open and a group of Canarian men emerged, laughing despite their predicament. They surrounded the Berlingo and with a heave and a minimum of fuss made a much better job of parking it than the owner could ever have managed. Then, just for good measure, they ‘re-arranged’ the position of the car on the other side of the bus as well.

It was simple, but effective and it created enough space for the bus, and the rest of us to continue merrily on our way without the need for calling in the boys in blue.

I’ve become accustomed to pretty much anything I see on Tenerife’s roads, but today was a new experience for me.

I reached a roundabout between La Orotava and Puerto de la Cruz to find my progress hampered by these fellows. They’d clearly found the grass on the island in the centre of the roundabout irresistible and, as the rest of their herd headed homewards up the hill, these two kept their heads down munching away,  oblivious that they’d brought traffic to a standstill.

After a few moments one of the Billy-come-latelys looked up, spotted they were being left behind and, deciding it was time to rejoin the others, trotted happily across the roundabout and after their mates.

I have to say that by the way they didn’t observe who had right of way and their appalling road positioning, they’d picked up a couple of bad habits from some of the local human road users.

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

There’s no escaping the heat, even the shade offers no relief. The cat slinks from one promising shady looking spot to another, seeking respite, but there’s none to be had. He collapses defeated; he could be dead. A lizard runs right past his nose, but he hasn’t the energy to open even an eye. I know how he feels. There’s no noise, it’s too hot for anybody to do anything. The only active creatures are the birds and the lizards who are feeding frantically on the thousands of insects which the heat has brought forth.
The idea of a cool shower isn’t an option; the cold water is hot and the hot water is scalding. Opening doors and windows makes no difference, except to let more hairdryer-hot air into the house.

35° before 09.00 and the temperature rising reaching 41° by midday. Crazy temperatures are being quoted like 55°. Seems impossible, but not beyond the realms. It’s a heat which pervades your brain, making it difficult to think; impossible to do anything physical. Everywhere is a tinderbox, a disaster waiting to happen, which only requires one careless moment. Fires are already raging on La Gomera, fanned by the hot dry air and strong winds which we experienced here yesterday. The calima has spread westward since Thursday, pumping up the heat with a fiery wind which gusted at up to 80 kph, taking our chimney with it. The wind seems to have past us now, leaving a fiercely hot stillness in its wake and the white hot sky is starting to show signs of blue, evidence that the calima has possibly run its course.

It might not be what anyone visiting Tenerife wants to hear, but what we really need now is some rain, just to cool things down again.

In a previous post I mocked the Echo and The Bunnymen website, which announced news of their gig in La Laguna with the headline ‘Echo and the Sunnymen’. La Laguna in April, sunny? Yeah right. And then along came the calima and probably the hottest weekend that La Laguna is likely to see this year.

Tenerife’s former capital was positively balmy last night as Echo and The Bunnymen took to the stage in front of Central Campus University.
Supported by El Guincho and The Mistake, they played an impressive set to an audience made up of mostly sickeningly stylish Spanish students and a decent number of the ‘baby boomer’ generation who were probably fans the first time around.
I was never a big fan, but after last night I’m a convert. Ian McCulloch´s voice has developed a rougher edge over the years which suits the band’s Doors inspired sounds and lyrics.

It was interesting to watch the mainly Canarian audience lap up a set which included a couple of new numbers (one of which Ian McCulloch sold to us as being ‘probably crap’ cause it was new),The Killing Moon, Seven Seas and Lips Like Sugar. One stage hand seemed to be in complete rapture singing along to that one.
One of the oddest moments came when the band finished their set. As they walked off the stage, there was enthusiastic clapping for sure, but no shouts of ‘more’, or even ‘¡otra!’, even though everyone had clearly enjoyed the performance. It was as if the audience seemed to think, that was it, game over. It was left to a small band of British fans to lead the way and their shouts of ‘Echo, Echo’ were soon taken up by the people around them. So at least the band didn’t have the embarrassing situation of reappearing for the obligatory encore without the audience actually demanding it. I can only put this deviation from the norm down to live gig etiquette being a wee bit ‘lost in translation’.

Still, listening to a good British band, even if they are Liverpool supporters, on a balmy evening in La Laguna was a great way to spend a Saturday night – and the bonus ball was that it was all free.

It’s taken a long time for me to realise that on Tenerife, the northern parts anyway, the most effective way of having a beautifully lush garden here is to cut trees and shrubs right back to the bone every so often. The two orchid trees in this picture looked exactly the same three or four months ago, then I pruned the one on the left until there wasn’t a branch left on it, only five bare trunks; a skeleton of a tree. Now look at it, incredible. The speed at which plants grow is frightening. It’s no wonder that Tenerife was a botanists dream.

On Sunday I saw further evidence that Whiskas is a ‘special one’ in the feline world.
I witnessed an internal battle between good and evil, where he reached a fork in the road and had to contemplate which direction to take.

18 months ago the demon would have won, but these days the battle between good and evil has entered an arena where the sand is grey.
As it was Sunday morning, we slept late, as you do. Subsequently this meant that Whiskas’ breakfast was also late; more of a brunch really.
Clearly this didn’t go down well and the usual breakfast preparation small talk of “Would you like some Friskies with your breakfast?”, “Are you hungry?” (stupid question to ask a cat) and “Have you had your first breakfast yet?” (we know he does the rounds of the area) wasn’t met with the customary wide bright blue eyes and the ever so cute “prrrrrrp” chirpy replies. He was miffed.

So breakfast preparation was no nonsense. Food in bowl, bowl placed outside. Unfortunately it began to rain as he was eating. This didn’t help his mood. If we’d fed him at the normal time, he’d have had a dry breakfast. He left his bowl and his half eaten breakfast and legged it back inside the house. I knew immediately where this was going. In his head, breakfast was declared null and void and a couple of hours further along the day, he’d expect a replacement in full. I rescued his bowl, placed it just inside the door and pointed his nose in its direction. It seemed to do the trick and he wolfed the rest down.

Unfortunately, this also signalled that as his bowl was inside the house, he had a right to find somewhere inside to curl up away from the rain. I could see his eyes scanning the room looking for the perfect spot, before settling on the Windsor chair. He casually walked over to it and stuck an exploratory paw on the cushion.
“WHISKAS,” I tried to put some authority into my voice. The paw was withdrawn from the cushion and he did a circuit of the room, stopping at the chair again. The paw went up again.
“WHISKAS,” another warning. This time there was a delay before the paw was withdrawn. He was in distraction mode, so I thought ´third time and he’s out’. I didn’t have to wait too long. This time I got out of my chair; a sign that I meant business. After a moments defiance, he withdrew his paw from the chair and sauntered casually over to me, rubbing his body against my leg, but I could see that his half-tail was flicking furiously. The internal struggle had begun.

He looked at my ankle, then rubbed his body against my leg, then looked at my ankle again, then another rub. I knew exactly what was going on. He wanted to wrap his front paws around my leg and sink his teeth into my shin. This was his modus operandi, or at least it used to be.
It looked as though he’d beaten his demons, the attack never came and then I made the mistake of laughing at him. Whatever good qualities cats have, being able to laugh at themselves isn’t one of them. In a flash, his legs were wrapped around my lower leg and his mouth clamped firmly on my shin bone.
But…and this is the difference from 18 moths ago when my leg would have felt as though it had been caught I a steel bear trap, his claws remained retracted and his bite had all the force of a toothless man.
He held the position. I could almost hear the internal struggle. “Bite the bastard, bite the bastard.” “No, don’t. Let go, there’ll be no more food if you bite him.”
The pressure on my leg increased slightly and I decided to take the decision away from him by flicking him with a sheet of A4. It was enough. He released his grip and I ejected him from the house (this happens a lot with Whiskas).

This cat is never going to be an angel, but at least he seems to be dealing with his anger management better these days.