June 2023

My blog has become mostly monthly. This is, for now anyway, probably the only way to keep it going as anything more frequent doesn’t stand a chance at present. . 

After a quiet first weekend, apart from circumnavigating Volcán Chinyero, June starts to get busy. Plenty of work during the week of course, old clients and new to keep me on my toes, there’s life in the old dog beyond ballet!! I’m getting to be quite the expert in complex Word Press stuff, and interfacing between Sage finance software and sales websites - all very exciting!!

The second weekend starts on Friday with a drive to the capital and specifically Auditorio de Tenerife for a fabulous performance of Tannhauser - the full symphony orchestra and chorus of sixty is just magnificent. 

Next day is upside down - I cook dinner at lunchtime whilst hubby is packing. Before that we walk to La Caleta and back, the usual rough path is blocked by a new bridge near the golf course, we wonder what is coming as we struggle to fight through the tough to avoid the closure? Otherwise it’s a beautiful walk as ever. 

At 18:00 we head off to TFS, check in and settle down in the lounge, still serving breakfast until at 19:00 dinners are set up. I cheekily get meatballs - one has to test things out, even though I made pack-up for the plane later! Our flight leaves later than it should, and we finally land about 01:15 next morning. There’s no car hire at that time so we schlepp across Manchester Airport to check into an hotel, the tiniest room ever, for a few hours before arriving promptly at the Europcar desk as planned on this bright and warm Sunday morning. It’s a lovely drive across the Snake Pass to Sheffield. 

Our holiday starts with what might be the last ever visit to Fischer’s Baslow Hall. This restaurant, indeed the Fischer family, have been part of my life since 1982, and now they are retiring. We have a wonderful lunch in what is now called the wine room, over the years this private dining has had a few names.

We have a fabulous week in Sheffield, Leeds and Harrogate, do a lot of socialising, visit a friend’s new-build and far too much to eat and drink. 

We end our holiday with a visit to Ridgeway - the Old Vicarage, our other favourite venue in the area. 

Our journey home starts with trouble as the Snake is closed, but it’s nice to take a different, albeit longer, route back to MAN. The flight is fine and we’re home for beans on toast as planned. We manage a reasonable shot of our village, can even work out which blob is our house - just!

On Saturday we make our first visit to the newly built Adeje theatre, just five miles from our house. We enjoy Peter (as in Peter Pan) the musical which is extremely well done, with a very talented cast. Sadly no live music on this occasion, but with only 550 seats making it profitable is not going to be an easy call. 

On Sunday we drive up to the capital again, first the old capital La Laguna for a lovely couple of hours around the old buildings before dropping down the hill to the new capital and Auditorio de Tenerife, this time an organ concert. 

Our first experience of this incredible, modern organ is with astonishment - the instrument sounds just superb - of course we see some of the large pipes fastened to the proscenium and sidewalls each visit, but more are visible today, and it’s clear that there are hidden chambers too. The fabulous acoustic of the hall means we enjoy a superb duet of Bach’s Concierto for Piano and Organ, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, plus solos, more duets and two astonishing encores from keyboard masters Paolo Oreni and Alessandro Marangoni. 

The final Sunday in June we resume our inexorable round-island walk. Today is quite significant because the starting point is at 43km by road, precisely midway between our house and where we always park at Auditorio de Tenerife in the capital, so a semi-milestone if you like. The drive, even at eco-friendly Grandad speeds, doesn’t take long, and we’re parked up at Abades, a sleepy town hugely popular with local sun-worshippers and divers, faster than one can say Steve Wright. 

Passing some wonderfully tortured coastline, soon we’re heading to the lighthouse, which has a weird disused nearby building, but modern inside. Once one has cleared the dust and debris from the windows, it’s possible to see how clean things are, and wonder as to its use?

Moving on we pass a cute church and then the nearby beach, before walking through Casablanca, not the one where nobody ever said “play it again Sam” obviously. The final leg is to reach Las Eras but as we come to a cliff-hanger on the cutting above the motorway, we decide it’s enough and break out much-needed lunch - salad with sous vide pork loin wrapped in Serrano, and stuffed with chorizo - gorgeous!

Our return is similar, although we take advantage of hindsight on a few occasions to simplify the route, which means some different views. We come across the only four-door beetle we’ve ever seen.

Our final segment is to intentionally explore the mysterious “holiday camp” we noticed on the previous visit. Definitely not hi-de-hi, this 1943 collection of dormitories and other buildings, over 40 in total, are the never-used remnants of Spains answer to the dreaded disease of leprocy.

Built by the army during the war, it remained in military grade mothballs until 2001, afterwhich it has become home to graffiti artists and (apparently) some infamous raves. Still off-limits, people do what is intrinsically expected in Spain regardless - to go exactly where they want anyway. The church is weird enough, but in profile taken on an air of “Dark Satanic Mill.”

We drop back down into Abades to find our car, sweltering in the heat, has decided we’ve move to the ocean! Later we get in our daily half-mile before pre-dinner drinkies with Bradford.