Goin’ Back

We left rainy England in February and flew off to Tenerife - yay! Our first visit since February 2020 (immediately prior to Covid lockdown).

Look at Mount Teide rising above the clouds to greet us

We had a 5th floor apartment this time which gave us a great view for nosing over the apartments, pool and bar …

and over the rooftops to the sea and a big sky. We saw a couple of fabulous rainbows and a few starry nights, but missed the lunar eclipse.

When the clouds dispersed the temperature rose by about 5 degrees to the low 20s. We even went in the pool, though it turns out post-stroke swimming was a more traumatic experience than we’d expected - luckily post-stroke lounging is fine. There were quite a few rainy days, more than expected but some of the downpours were spectacular.

The plants were loving it. This bush was so beautiful in one of the parks with the Sun on it - Croton apparently.

And these yellow delights along the sea front - some sort of day lillies.

There are several flowered trees which stand out as they’re so stunning but the jacaranda mimosiflora is one of my favourites even before the most beautiful lilac flowers appear in the Summer. The foliage and huge seed pods create such a decorative canopy.

The nearby barranco actually had water pouring through like a river on a couple of days and the plant growth there is fabulous, with tree versions of what we consider houseplants - palms, umbrella plant and rubber trees. And the ever-present bougainvillea, such a gorgeous splash of colour.

The weather produced some huge waves which we could hear crashing against the rocks from our apartment. The red flags were out and even the surfers didn’t risk it. The little red crabs were clinging to the rocks for dear life.

We even saw a few land snails, a bit different from our common snails. I don’t think we’ve seen them in Tenerife before but perhaps they felt safe to roam because the only lizards we saw were tiny ones.

We saw and heard a lot of local birds including the African blue tit, Island Canary and parakeets. And we saw the swifts arrive - these are likely making their way up past Africa to Northern Europe, so maybe they’ll appear over the allotment soon! All too fast to photograph so here’s a pigeon showing off fancy feet with painted nails 😃

It was a different holiday from our usual - no bus rides to visit other towns and no long hikes but we walked into Puerto de la Cruz most days to shop, people-watch and enjoy coffee and cakes. We also ate ant our favourite vegetarian cafe, El Limon, so pleased to see they’re still open.

The thing about Casablanca Apartments is that they’re on a steep hill, so any direction we walk includes steps - soo many steps …

Or slopes - some very steep ones! We bought Jamie hiking sticks, which helped a lot, but we still had to resort to a taxi up the hill one day - it was worth it!

Most evenings we enjoyed on our balcony (I had to buy a jumper!), entertainment in the bar or in the games room. 

Is it mean to say that Jamie’s stroke has levelled the playing field a bit for pool games? I lose a few less now🤭 And I won first place in the car racing game (just in case he’s reading this 🏆)

Suffice to say we had a lovely break from the monotony of February. 

We returned home to fog but see more signs to encourage us to think of Spring and I seem to have brought quite a bit of food back home to keep the holiday dream alive. Mmm, cactus jam and Rooibos tea - yum!

Oh, and did I mention? We’re going back in June - well, as we’re both retired.. and hopefully see a bit more sunshine. Better get working on that allotment next week!

Song title provided by Carole King.