It’s been a couple of weeks since I updated the blog, so I thought I’d provide a quick update on what we’ve been up to, which is a lot more of the same really, but really enjoyable. We’ve tended to spend the week with my parents, which I’ve really enjoyed and has also worked well for Rachel with her folks close by. We’ve continued with our early morning walks, with some mornings drier than others….There’s been a lot of rain and the river Ouse is close to bursting its banks where my parents are, but the flood plains seem to be doing their job. The rest of the time we have been helping our folks out, by taking care of health matters and generally helping out where we can, all of which has been really nice to be able to do. We spent another fun night with Jon & Jo, before heading to Bracknell, where we’ve been staying at my brothers house, as he’s been out of town, although we did manage to have a good catch up. We met Seb & Christien for lunch in little Venice in London, which was nice, I looked in on my good friend Andy, and then on Sunday night we had dinner with Richard & Remale in Windsor, before they flew back to the US. We decided on Sunday to head off to Antalya in Turkey, which ticks our main boxes (time zone, internet speed & interesting things to see and do and the weather) and we’re not too far away if our parents need us. We’ve booked an Airbnb for a Month, so let’s see how we get on. I’ll update in a few days.

We spent the week with our parents, which after 4 months away has been nice to do, just helping out with some of the mundane tasks whilst doing the fun stuff too. After the morning exercise program, we’ve taken some really lovely early morning walks with my mum along the banks of the River Ouse. On one of those return walks we were even invited into the small church in Hartford, which built in 1089, gets a mention in the “Doomsday Book” it’s so nice how local people give up their time and use their skills for free, to help keep these community focal points in tip top shape, for all to use and admire….even thirsty dogs are welcome to stop in for a drink. We had arranged to spend Friday night in Braintree (Essex) with Jon & Jo, special friends that we’ve known since my casino days. We had a nice dinner at a local Turkish restaurant before headed back home. So Jon and I could do battle over the chess board, while Jo and Rach caught up. I won the first game, but after that it went downhill from there (I need to practice). Saturday morning Jo, Sophie, Rach and I, took Ozzy for a long walk across the fields and afterwards were treated to a delicious breakfast courtesy of jo & Soph. After saying our goodbyes, we headed back to our base at my brothers and then on to dinner at a great little restaurant called “Plate at No 6” in Windsor, where we met Rachel & Keith who are good friends and always great company. It was a really lovely evening. Sunday we went to play tennis with Christien in some very challenging conditions, but good fun nevertheless. It was a perfect end to a great weekend. Late Sunday afternoon we headed back up to Huntingdon, for another week with our lovely parents.

The quarantine period wasn’t too bad and whilst we stayed at my brothers, who was out of town, we took the opportunity to sort through some of our stuff that hadn’t quite managed to make it into storage. We decided that we’d keep to our early morning exercise routine, followed by a good walk, swapping coastal walks, for a walk through the forest and local park, which was both bracing but enjoyable. We carried out the quick release tests on Thursday and were released shortly thereafter. Thursday lunchtime I met some good friends for lunch in White Waltham. It was great to catch up and have a good laugh. Rach and I set sail at about midday on Friday up to Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, to look in on my parents. Rachel parents are 20 minutes further north in Peterborough, so we’ll spend most of the coming week flitting between both sets of parents. Saturday we had arranged to meet Seb & Ally in Stamford for lunch. Stamford is a really a pretty medieval town in Lincolnshire, famed more recently for its locational use in numerous period dramas. Perhaps less known is that it’s name was adopted by Stamford, Connecticut when it was founded in 1641. We arrived at a really cute little restaurant called “The Blonde Beet” where we spent the perfect afternoon catching up on all the things that we’d missed and just enjoying being in each other’s company. We dropped Ally & Seb off at the train station and after a long embrace they heading back up north. I then dropped Rach off at her parents and headed back to spend time with mine.

We’ve pretty much used up our 90 day European allowance, so as planned we headed back to the UK to look in on family and friends, before moving on again. Our final week was a mixed bag weather wise, we had some heavy rain whilst the higher levels got snow! And the temperature gauge had definitely dropped a few degrees, which meant that other than our early morning walks a final tennis session at club Toscal, the week was taken up preparing for the UK trip. Saturday was a good day for us to leave, as it was overcast and rainy. As we were staying in the north, it meant an hour and twenty minute taxi ride to the south airport, which was a reminder why we stayed in the north, which is nice and green with a backdrop against the impressive Mt Teide, where as in complete contrast the south is like the surface of the moon. Once in the airport the checkin and customs process was relatively painless, as was our four hour flight. We touched down in London at 7pm, with a driver waiting to take us to my brothers, who had very kindly let us stay in his house for the first 5 days of the trip (quarantine BS), before heading up to see the folks.

Where we are staying, sits between 2 bell towers (stereo) and whilst it’s been really nice to hear the bells sounding out, it has also made us very aware of our mortality. The bells ring every 15 minutes. At quarter past it chimes once, at half past twice, three times for quarter to the hour and then four gongs just before the hour is announced. It really is a constant reminder that your own clock’s ticking and on occasion I’ve found myself reflecting back on the 15 minute period just past, thinking where did that go! Rachel’s not been feeling great this past week, so we’ve taken it pretty easy, but we’ve still managed an hour’s walk first thing every morning and a few mornings when we’ve played tennis. We had planned to go to the botanical garden and the archeological museum, but instead we spent our last weekend in Tenerife by the salt water lake (Lago Martianez) where I managed a couple of long icy swims, but mostly lounged around in perfect temperatures whilst soaking up the sunshine.

This was our last week at “Calle de Fragata 4” and on reflection, it has been an enoyable stay, with great walks, a very welcoming tennis club and the interesting Playa de Jardin to march along every morning at dawn. We’ve been deliberating for the past few weeks on where to go to next and as Rachel’s 90 days in Europe are up in February, we’ve decided on the African continent, but before we go we are heading back to the UK to look in on family and friends. Saturday was moving day for us, so for our final 14 days before our travel intermission, we’ve decided to try out city living and have moved downtown. Part of the trip is about being open to different lifestyles, to help us decide on where, what and how we live the next chapter of our lives, (Rachel’s much better at this than I am). We are travelling with far too much luggage, as when we left in September we really didn’t know what we’d need, we’ve got a good idea now though. I only mention this as the road we are staying in is a quaint, pedestrianised cobbled street, which meant carrying all of our luggage and shopping, without leaving it unattended on busy Saturday afternoon, from a couple of streets away to where it needed to be, it was like one of those team building exercises, topped off with our apartment being on the top floor with no elevator 🙂 Upon opening the door we were greeted with a small bijou apartment, with a lounge diner opening out onto a small enclosed balcony, a very compact bathroom, a master bedroom and a very small guest room. The location’s great, we’ve got some aclaimed restaurants, organic stores, fresh fish & veg stalls all on our doorstep, together with salt water swimming at Lago Martinez and several black beaches….Perfect!

We’ve had the car since we arrived on the island and it’s been handy to have to get around, but we’d agreed that Tuesday was the day to return it. We could have extended it but the main reason we didn’t, was that we’d become a little lazy, choosing to drive somewhere when we could have walked. The south easterly winds over the festive period, which bring with the warmer temperatures across from the Sahara (26 -28°c), have been replaced with cooler weather (20°c) and a few days of rain, but we’ve still been able to play tennis and get out. We’d booked an earlier stargazing tour that had been cancelled and we were almost certain that the gloomy skies on Thursday, would mean that we were going to miss out again. But that morning we received a call saying that the exciting evening was to go ahead as planned. We made our way across to the Maritim hotel, where our comfortable minibus was waiting and after we’d picked up 8 other folks, we made our way up into the mountains and when we got up to about 1300M, we broke through the cloud cover to reveal a beautiful cobalt blue sky. We got to 2300M where we were to spend the following 40 minutes or so watching the sunset. Seeing the sun sink into a dreamy cloudscape was really quite stunning. The sun set at around 6:30pm and thereafter we made our way to the cable station at the base of Mt Teide, where the daytime temperature of 20°c had been replaced by a temperature of around 0°c with wind chill. We had been warned to bring warm clothes, but even with 2 long sleeved tops, a hoody, a gillet and a wind jacket it was chiilllly! Teide is in the top 10 places in the world to see the stars, due largely to the landscape and other than the odd set of car headlights, there’s no light pollution. I don’t know too much about them, but I’ve always been fascinated by the stars and what greeted my eyes didn’t disappoint. The sky was awash with a myriad of stars, the brightest of them is Sirius a binary star, which has a blue/white tinge to it. The constellations was laid out for all to see. The summer is the best time to view the nebula within the Milky Way and although you can’t see it in the winter, the winter offers the clearer sky’s. I remembered some of the more common ones, but our excellent astronomer was able to guide us through our galaxy. He gave us a good tip on how to find Polaris (North Star) whilst in Tenerife, look for the constellation of Cassiopeia, basically it’s an upside down W, or a stretched M, then from the right leg, count two stars down and that’s Polaris, in the UK you’ll find it off of the right side of the constellation of Ursa Minor (little bear), but it’s not so clear here in winter, as Tenerife is 28°N the stars sit much lower, meaning that that some of the stars fall below the horizon. The UK sits about 55°N so Polaris and indeed most of the constellations sit that much higher up in the night sky. We finished off the evening looking through high-powered telescopes for a closer look at stars and planets…Fantastic! I’m very fond of an Orchid, so on Saturday we decided to take a trip to the “Orchid Gardens of Sitio Litre” (little site/place). The 18th Century Mansion and it’s enchanting gardens have had many famous visitors over the years, with Agatha Christie perhaps being the most notable, she wrote “The man from the sea” here. The garden is home to some 350 species of interesting and beautiful orchids placed around the gardens, which are also awash with the oranges and pinks of bougainvillea & hibiscus and although the gardens aren’t huge they’re set out with great care so that each of the little individual areas all blend seemlessly together. It’s a very steep climb to get to the gardens but it was definately worth the visit.

We’ve had a great a week, bathed in warm sunshine. It’s been perfectly balanced between relaxation and physical activity. First thing every other day we’ve played an hour and a half of tennis. The courts are situated on a cliff edge, which makes it difficult to concentrate, as the view out across the ocean is pretty special. We went for a interesting coastal walk that begun in Las Aguas, with a path that took us to the beautiful little hamlet of San Juan de la Rambla, which offered some incredible views out over the Atlantic. We’ve getting used to knowing that after reaching the crescendo of a tough walk the prize is an amazing vista. Mid week we had decided that the pull of Mt Teide had become to strong, so we embarked on a 90-minute journey of tiny roads winding through mountain villages up through the clouds, stopping to take in the various miradors as we ascended. Mt Teide last erupted around 1910, but the lava fields that dominate the landscape as you near the base station could have been created yesterday, as could the carved magma channels that run down the mountain range. We arrived at the base station of Teide (circa 2350M), and met the cable that takes you the additional 1000M up, the other 200 meters, you walk yourself. The temperature at the base station was 24 degrees, but amazingly as we got out at the top there were patches of snow and the temperature had plunged to a chilly 4, or 5 degrees. Once up at the top the views were as I’m sure you can imagine incredible and you could see 4 of the other 7 Canary Islands, as well as the Pico Viejo volcano (3150 M – 2nd highest peek in Tenerife) It has an huge crater measuring 720M in diameter and one could only imagine what it would have looked like with the “roof” on. The only things missing for me was a bit more snow and a set of skis! New Years Eve was the day that we’d booked our whale watching trip, it meant an hours drive down south to Costa Adeje, where we boarded the “MonteCristo” a comfortable 20M catamaran, along with a group of 12 other people. We set sail at 10am for what was to be a 3hr excursion. After about an hour out and a couple of miles away from the shore, the captain had sighted the first of what was to be 4, or 5 pods of pilot whales. I loaded my phone into the gimbal, to make sure that I wouldn’t miss anything and what I’d capture would be of reasonable quality, so I spent the next the 15 minutes enthralled as the whales. Then as quickly as appeared, they were gone. They can stay below the surface for 90 minutes before needing to resurface for air. After returning to the dock we decided to head back to the apartment for lunch and to review what I was certain would be some great footage. Well I’m certain that had I checked to see that I was actually recording, it probably would have been!

Festive greetings everyone! We decided to head south to check out Los Christianos, Playa de Las Americas and Costa Adeje, hoping to find somewhere to swim, eat and relax. Tenerife is shaped a bit like a pork chop, with the north side of the island being the thin end, Puerto de la Cruz sits on the west at 9:00 o’clock and all of the aforementioned points of interest all sit around 6:00 o’clock, but because the Teide mountain range snakes through the middle of the island, running north to south, you need to go clockwise around the top of the island to get there. So about an hour and a quarter later we arrived in Los Christianos, which was really busy, so we moved along the coastline from beach location to beach location and too be honest it really wasn’t our thing, so with a final stop at Costa Adeje, we decided to head back through the mountains, which ended up being the highlight of the day, with some great views, including that of Mt Teide. We finished off the day with a game of tennis on Parque Toscal’s excellent clay courts. The following day we discovered a really nice walk around the cove of “Los Roques’ and up through the banana plantations which was pretty stunning. Friday we played tennis again which was fun and did a little bit more exploring, determined to find a place to swim, but only to yet again, come up against the tempest of the Atlantic Ocean. Christmas day we had breakfast in the warm sunshine and after we’d spoken to family and friends, we decided to walk down to the port to see what happens in Puerto de la Cruz at Christmas time, if anything, we’d also read that the renowned Canarian architect/nature activist Cèsar Manrique had designed several salt water pools and an artificial lake the “Lago Martiànez” sat at the waters edge blended aesthetically with the sea and set against the back drop of the mountains, that looked incredible (we saw a really interesting hotel that he’d designed in Anfi, Gran Canaria) As we walked through what was a surprisingly busy town, we headed towards the “Lago Martiànez” and upon reaching it were pleased to see that it was open, so in we went (Christmas Eve & New Years Eve are the big celebratory days) It really was an impressive place and you could see that it was well looked after and also a great place to swim in a fantastic setting. We headed back through town and decided to stop at a fish restaurant that we’d read about and weren’t disappointed, it was a great end to our first week.

The weather was perfect for our last week in Gran Canaria and we managed to get some tennis in, a few swims and a final trip south west to Tauro beach which we’ve enjoyed and as luck would have it they had an Italian opera singer performing at the little beach restaurant, which was a little random, but entertaining nevertheless. We packed up on Friday in readiness for our flight to Tenerife the following morning at 9:45am. I’d called the airline a couple of times and Rach had checked the local Facebook community, for changes to the travel rules, making certain that we had the correct paperwork, but seeing as we arrived in the Canaries a month ago we didn’t need anything and were good to go. So the morning of the flight, after waiting for our tardy taxi, we arrived at the airport an hour before our flight and too be honest I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the check in was a breeze and we boarded a relatively empty plane, for our 30 minute flight to Tenerife (North). After picking up the luggage and the car, we headed to Puerto de la Cruz. First impressions of the island, as we drove SW was that it’s very mountainous and very green, a complete contrast to Gran Canaria, which was very black and arid. It took us about 30 minutes to reach Calle de la Fragata, our new home for the next month. We’ve been trying to stay away from the touristy spots, instead opting to stay on the fringes, as with our previous 2 stays. The apartment is more of a holiday let, which is fine and it’s in a really nice quiet neighbourhood, overlooking the sea and Puerto de la Cruz on the one side and a snow capped Mt Teide (an active vlocano and the highest mountain in Spain) on the other. We’ll be off exploring this week and I’ll report back at the end of the week. Feliz Navidad!