Claire's day

As we so late back and not eaten properly we decided to eat at our place and headed straight down. They had a Canary night with starters and mains as their specials. I went for the chick pea stew with mixed meats while Claire went for the Canary cheese salad starters. It was quite an unusual mix of meat in my stew, judging from the bones I had, guinea pig, seagull and rock pigeon. For the mains, I went for the spiced pork with Canary potatoes while Claire tried the rabbit. Again I had lots of meat but the Canary potatoes didn’t have the usual rock salt on them and were a little cold. Claire's rabbit was actually rabbit legs with similar Canary potatoes to mine. Unfortunately, I think that they used the front rabbit legs rather than the larger rear ones. If not they had used young bunny rabbit. What is the name of a young rabbit? Never mind, it was a little late for us to eat anyway and the local Tenerife wine was excellent. To be fair, we have been very impressed with the overall quality of the food and wine over here and they have all been reasonably priced. We have found that mostly the food has been prepared fresh and cooked in house using good quality produce. Tenerife is certainly worth considering for winter holidays at least because of their lovely climate. The added benefit from England is that it is almost due south with the same time as at home so no jet lag and you are not wasting your time going east or west. It is actually 15 degrees west of London and so should be an hour behind us but they keep the same time anyway. I hope that I don’t leave it another 23 years before I come back next time. I would love to try the Canary islands cruise when we visit again. A couple that we talked to yesterday recommended the cruise and stay option.

To be honest, Claire and I had a lovely day taking it easy, we seemed to get on all day without arguing. It was really nice to relax and not be in a hurry for once. We chilled out and had a drive to Arona, which is only about 3 minutes drive away, for lunch. They have lots of choice for lunch and different shops and supermarkets etc. We tried the place that we had Sunday lunch in but it was closed so we ended up in a little English run place and I forgot to take a photo so don't know the name. The supermarket was the highlight, they had Siglo Rioja for E5 a bottle and I had paid E6.70 in our local one. I can't remember what they charge back home but we rarely buy it there. We also got some more oranges as we have an electric squeezer in our rooms so we have fresh orange juice every morning. As we were on a Claire day we also had eggs, bacon and tomato this morning. Claire really likes staying in because we have BBC1 and 2 and ITV on our TV so she can keep up to date on all her soaps.

We found out yesterday that the north and south of the island have very little difference a year in rainfall; the reason its so much greener in the north is because the clouds gather there and the trees take the moisture directly from the air rather than relying on the rain. They keep as much as they can and release the rest into the soil around them so its easily available if they need it again but this irrigates other species to grow. The difference between the two sides is remarkable. I saw a nature program once and they couldn't understand how the plants survived and reproduced as it hadn't rained for over 20 years. They obviously got the moisture from the dew in the morning or directly out the air.

Talking briefly yesterday about the flooding trouble in Queensland because its been on all the international news channels. Well I watched one last night and they have had even worse floods in Rio in Brazil where over 350 people have lost their lives. It makes you wonder how many real people in some unreported countries are loosing their lives all the time without anyone else knowing. It's strange, but I suppose natural that we all have so much more empathy for the people closest to ourselves. Hope you are OK up there, Geoff and Denise?

We have had such a nice relaxing day today that Claire has decided to have a similar one again tomorrow. Our flight is not until about 8pm on Saturday so we asked about keeping our room after 10am but they wanted E40. No thanx! We will have our driving day on Saturday with our stuff locked in the boot. I want to do a west island tour as they see the fewest tourists there. When we rented the car from Gold rentals we had to buy a full tank of fuel and bring it back empty but that’s difficult to judge. Luckily the car has a readout of how many kilometres you have left in the tank. Probably normal but its the first time Ive seen it. I wasn't happy with my car key at first because its so big and you don't have lots of pockets with you on holiday. Then I discovered this little button on the fob and it lets the key go inside the fob. Once inside, when you press the button the key jumps out. I’ve got a flick key! Well, enough of this waffle, I'm sure you all have some work to do.