The Rest of their Lives

    Since arriving here in Tenerife, each morning when the sun starts to rise over the mountain that I can see from my apartment I slip on my walking shoes.

    At eight o'clock in the morning normally the only people walking around are those trying to get there daily dose of exercise just as I'm doing, or workers setting off to their jobs.

     The climate here compared to that back in Scotland encourages you to get out and about early and late in the day, both being the cooler times.

    This morning however was a little different and that was because it's time for the kids to go back to school following their long summer break. The bus stops that are dotted along my habitual route were heaving with children and parents. Some chatted, some laughed and when the Canarians are excited they are very, very noisy, no matter what age they are.

    The over-sized school bags on the backs of the smaller children and the look of trepidation on the faces of the adults that accompanied them, made it obvious as to which of the youngsters were embarking on their first ever school day.

    For them their world was about to change and what they learn from this day forward will hopefully help prepare them further for the rest of their lives.

Money for Nothing, Books are Free

    The sky is an azure blue and the clouds that are around today, resemble white candyfloss. It's one of those days that makes you thank God for being alive.

    My friend Margaret called me last night and I arranged to meet up with her this morning to visit the local market.

    We met up close by to her home and the walk from her house to the market was blistering hot, with only a few palm trees here and there for shelter.

    There are a mixed assortment of stalls, selling anything and everything from bric-a-brac, garden-hoses to brassieres. The one that I make a beeline for, is the one that is every inch a mini bookstore.

    The shelves are stacked high with hardbacks and paperbacks in English, French, German and Spanish. Some of them have seen better days, and are now bound together with sticky tape. Dog-eared pages with remnants of sun-tan oil smears on the pages, make me wonder as to whether surgical gloves would be better worn by any purchaser when reading.

    The stallholder informs me that I can buy two books for one euro, a bargain, a steal. Yes, a bargain for the reader, a profit for the vendor and the steal is that the author will receive no money, or recognition for their hard work. Because, these stalls are giving our books away for free.

   

Things That Go Bump In the Night

   

   
    Having never lived in an apartment before, I'm finding living in such close confines with complete strangers takes a little getting use to. The coughs from the guy through the wall first thing in the morning makes me want to tell him when I see him, to call for an appointment with the doctor.

    The late hours that the teenager with the pink hair two floors above keeps, I know must be worrying her parents and the dog that belongs to one of the apartments on the landing above, has the annoying habit of starting to bark just when I've managed to drop off to sleep.

    But, what do my neighbours think of their new foreign neighbour? Maybe they describe me as the woman who is constantly perspiring when they meet her. Because the thirty plus degrees outside temperature, is also something that I'm having to get use to.

    Apartment living is all about live and let live, I've found out in the last week. The only thing that I'm not so keen on, is the occasional bump in the night of which has no reasonable explanation.

Wash Day Blues

    I told you in Monday's blog, as to how I was temporarily moving my home base to the Canary Islands and I want to shout out, 'I've arrived.'

    Not that it will make any difference to the folks around here, but I'm ecstatic. However moving home can be a little stressful and relocating to a different country does have its little drawbacks.

    Especially, when it seems that your brain has decided to catch a later flight. Yeah, I'm running on dumb mode at present. First day here I managed to cut my fingers three times making dinner, thankfully I had packed the plasters. Then disaster struck when I put a dark blue towel in the wash with a white bath sheet, result turquoise bath sheet.

    Oh, and there's my new iron which has the shortest flex in the world and it keeps flying out of the electric socket when I try to smooth my rumpled clothes. Laundry days I can see are going to be a challenge.

    Hopefully, my brain will arrive in the next few days and I will feel back to normal, not that I'm saying that I will ever fall into the normal bracket. That would be a little far fetched.

    Okay, next challenge before  my brain arrives I'm going to have to find free WiFi somewhere so I can publish this post. I better splash on some suntan oil.

 

A Bit of a Change

    I'm kind of excited because over the next few weeks I'm setting off on an adventure. I'm not going to some place which is unfamiliar to me, but to move into my own apartment in the place I love holidaying the most.

    While I won't be taking up permanent residence in the Canary islands, I will now be spending more and more time there. I've told you all before as to how Tenerife is my 'Fantasy Island' and I'm looking forward to starting a new project and hopefully blogging about living, rather than holidaying in a different country.

    Of course there are some things that I will dearly miss when I go away. There is one important person that I definitely will miss, and I certainly I will miss the little guy below.

   For us all it will be a bit of a change, for sure.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

 

    For over a week I've been visiting a close family member in hospital everyday and placed at the doors of the elevator was a massive sign that stated the hospital's pledge to its patients.

    It contained the words, caring, compassion, respect, dignity, kindness, humanity, individuality and concluded that everyone matters.

    At first I payed little, or no attention to this collection of words; but as the condition of my relative deteriorated, the words that I read each day became more significant. Writers use words to demonstrate the depth of the thoughts, actions and feelings of their characters in a fictional piece.

    However, being a seriously ill patient in hospital is not a work of fiction, words written in a pledge need to be carried out. Sadly, the staff's actions never did speak louder than the words.

 

 

You're Amazeballs

    If you read original versions of books by William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and other greats; I'm sure we all come across words that are pretty alien to our everyday lives. It may also be that we have to search out the actual meaning.

    The English language and other languages are continuing to develop, all influenced by the multicultural society that we now live in and our use of social media.

    Because of this the Oxford Dictionary has added some new words to their listings, in recognition of words that are now being used on a regular basis by English speakers.

    Some people I'm sure will be holding there hands up in horror, when they read through the new additions. However, if the users of words such as clickbait, amazeballs, bingewatch, neckbeard, sideboob, cray are used in the correct context and the user knows the true definition; I certainly don't know what the fuss is about. After all, YOLO.