The kids and I accompanied Gaga on the bus to Santa Cruz yesterday. She had a medical appointment and according to the Titsa schedule we should have made it in bags of time. Unfortunately the driver of the bus we took would have made an excellent hearse-driver as he maintained a stately crawl the whole way. By the time we finally got off the bus, Gags was already 5 minutes late for her appointment and she still had to make it to Candelaria.

She shot off to get a taxi and I herded the kids in the direction of the Mercado de Nuestra Señora de Africa. I let them bore themselves silly in the little playground outside and then we took a turn around inside the market. Inside you’ll find flower stalls, fruit and veggies, herbs, spices, fresh meat, bread and pastries and garden plants. There is also a pharmacy which has some interesting odds and ends tucked away inside – ampoules of pure Retin A and various lotions and potions that promise to stem the march of time. This shop has a good little pet supplies locale attached.

Further round the market you’ll come across another pet shop except this one sells live animals and it is absolutely filthy inside. Grubby looking rabbits and guinea pigs huddle in dirty cages with various types of bird displayed above them. To a kid any rabbit is cute and I watched a Spanish man trying to drag his daughter away from this horrible place. Guaranteed that if he had given in and bought his daughter that conejo she’d be heartbroken over its dead body in a week.

By the time we’d wandered through the market and stuffed our faces with churros in a cafe outside I was hoping Gags would be all done with her business. But no… This is Tenerife after all and she was at least 15 minutes late for her appointment (despite bussing it all the way from the South). She now had to wait for the second shift.

So the kids and I walked on down towards the Plaza Iglesia and up again past the old houses and smart cafes to the General Serrador Bridge. There was no need for our detour other than killing time and normally we would just have gone straight across the bridge towards Calle de Castillo. The little side trip threw my daughter for six and she was convinced we would never find our way back to the main drag and retrieve poor Gaga again.

By the time we’d reached Calle de Castillo and were walking down to the Plaza, Gags was on the phone and we met up at last near the tower, yakking on the phone until we practically bumped into each other. Apparently while the poor soul had been waiting all that time, so was an obnoxious old man. He managed to upset everyone else present by hawking and spitting up phlegm on the floor and smoking in the waiting room. My Mum who is usually quite shy to use her Spanish found herself in the bosom of a clutch of indignant Spanish grannies all ready and willing to lynch the nasty old bugger.

Sales are on now of course so its not a bad time to visit the shopping centre of Santa Cruz. I accidentally tripped and fell over the doorstep into Zara and came out 20 minutes later and €30 poorer with 10 t-shirts. 10 for €30! It’d be rude not to, don’t you think?

We wandered on, stopping here and there until we eventually made it back to the bridge. In a romantic little flurry from the city councillors this bridge is called after General Ricardo Serrador whose wife is the Señora de Africa for whom the market is named. It quite fitting for the bridge to lead us back there from where we can carry on back to the bus station.

I know a couple of drivers here that hate making the journey to Santa Cruz. Whether it is to get to the Carrefour or Alcampo malls or to the Candelaria hospital or their national embassy or for a business meeting, navigating through the spaghetti junction of roads as you get closer to the capital is a nightmare.

On top of that, parking is no walk in the park. If you are aiming for Calle de Castillo, the underground car park nearby will do fine but try to visit anywhere a little further out and you would probably be easier to park there and get a taxi anyway.

Going to Santa Cruz by bus takes a lot of the hassle out of the journey. Just jump on the guagua and by the time you’ve read the paper and the kids are winding up for their first “Are we there yet?”, you are there. Taxis are available right outside the bus station to take you further afield but if you are heading for Mercado Señora de Africa and the shopping centre based round Plaza de Candelaria a five/ten minute walk will get you there.

As you can see from the picture, the Santa Cruz Bus Terminus is much like any bus station anywhere. As long as you know what bus number you are looking for you can’t really go far wrong.

This cheeky chap has started hanging out near a friend’s bird feeder. She suspects he may have escaped as he does look very young and he’s not the usual kind of clientele she gets at her open-all-hours bird diner.

He arrives with his green parrot buddies at about 7 a.m. and they all screech the place down till they take off about 9 (I bet the neighbours love that!) then they are back at 5p.m. for more grub.

Is he a Cockatiel? I’m not sure but he is most definitely cocky the way he perched there posing. If anyone has lost this little guy, please give me a call on 922733583 and I’ll tell you where he might be found.

There is something in the water in the UK. There has to be. There is just no other explanation for the level of barking madness that is going on there at the moment. I’m so glad that they seem to have a handle on the current stabbing crisis. Yes, the answer it would appear is to rip out the racists and malcontents at the very roots.

Woe betide any three year old hoodie planning to create mayhem at Mothercare. And as for you racist troublemakers huddling round the potty plotting to set about young Ahmed, we’ve got your number.

With the nursery nurses feverishly scribbling down any evidence of racist behaviour, including showing dislike for foreign or unfamiliar food, they’ll soon figure out which of those little rugrats is turning up their nose at Mai Ling’s Char Siu Bau. All is in good hands and we can sleep much safer in our beds.

Its just as well they don’t bring in the same kind of rules to Tenerife. My two would sneer at their grandmother’s Batanjaan Zalud which would no doubt be proof positive of their racism against North Africans while a good plate of Haggis and Neeps would uncover a deep seated suspicion for anything Scottish.

With the greatest of respect to the raving nutters who dreamt up this latest scheme I’d like to comment that my two kids go to state school in Tenerife. Although you can choose to pay to send your child to an English speaking school, state school is taught in Spanish – no ifs, and or buts about it.

Both my kids do well – on par with their classmates. They are not suffering by being taught in a second language and their fluency in Spanish means they are totally integrated and feel as much a part of the community as the local Tinerfeño kids.

That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be horrified if I offered them a plate of Sopa de Pescado Tinerfeña

I have been asked whether the roadworks in Costa Del Silencio are nearly finished. As this whole project is scheduled to take two years I suppose there will be more digging up to come but for works being done on Calle Diana and Avenida Jose Antonio Tavio the end is in sight.

This is the entrance onto Avenida Jose Antonio Tavio from the Andromeda lane beside the Damon Park tennis courts. Looking up the street you can see how wide the new walkway is. A good foot and a half has been clawed back from the Frontera-Primavera complex to create that extra space. Across the street is the bus stop and the turn to Garañana, the Templo fitness club and the Happy Days Clubhouse and tennis/lawn bowls courts.

There is no question that the current municipal works being carried out in Costa Del Silencio were far overdue. Thanks to bad lighting and poorly maintained pathways and the bizarre megalomania of the Ten Bel group which saw them grab and fence off huge strips of roadside land, further robbing people of safe walkways, the little town really was a death-trap.

Talk to the business owners along Avenida Jose Antonia Tavio which is flanked by Tre Bol and Chaparral and they will tell you that it’s been a tough year. There have been several closures and there may be more amongst the bar owners in each centre but for those who can tough it out, the future should be much brighter.

This is the corner of Calle Diana and Avnda. Jose Antonio Tavio looking towards Chaparral. That lovely wide sweep of walkway right around the corner used to be a skinny, bumpy little ankle-trap hard to negotiate with kids, shopping or a baby buggy and damn impossible if you happened to be in a wheel chair.

And this shot just shows the workers beavering away on the Chaparral side of Avenida Jose Antonio Tavio looking up towards Coral Mar. The day this picture was taking was blisteringly hot and it was about three in the afternoon – bang in the middle of siesta time. Obviously, the Traysesa boys deserve a medal and so do I for catching something so rare on film.

So there you have it. The Calle Diana and Jose Antonio Tavio thoroughfares will soon be the preferred places to promenade. You can imagine after a bit of landscaping that these wide and shady walkways will attract new custom to those bar and restaurant owners who have manged to stick it through all the upheaval of the past year.

Those in wheelchairs or pushing prams or wrangling wild children will find getting about far less fraught as the wider pavements make for a much safer and far more pleasant walking experience.

For more about Costa Del Silencio in general you can refer to the Costa Del Silencio Map, the Costa Del Silencio area walkabout and hotels and self catering in Costa Del Silencio.

I recently heard from David and Patsy from Sompting who are regular visitors to Tenerife (in fact they got engaged at the top of Yellow Mountain last year- bless!) and were here earlier this summer. They’ve always stayed in Costa Del Silencio but were upset this year to find that their regular watering hole Bollypan is now an empty shell.

A lot of people used Bollypan as a half-way refresher point situated as it is (was) halfway between Coral Mar and Las Galletas. Without the familiar Bollypan , the couple felt pressed to stay later in Las Galletas and drop in instead at late-nighter La Cita on their way home. Now back in Sompting they realised that their last holiday was spent mostly in bed with a hangover and that they are as pasty-white as when they left thanks to missing all those sunbathing hours.

Being newly-engaged I take that ‘hangover’ excuse with a pinch of salt nevertheless I’m sure the young(ish) couple will be pleased to note that the roadworks in Costa Del Silencio will soon make walking to the nearest boozer a far more pleasant experience as evidenced by my next post.

I have an odd affliction. No really, I do. It has affected me all my life and caused quite a bit of embarrassment over the years. You see, I have the worst time remembering faces.

Though I’ve never heard any other mention of this condition I am convinced there must be other sufferers and I would love to meet them and perhaps create a supportive social networking group. We could call it Facebook if that particular name hadn’t already been squandered on some piffling little outfit.

Last year I could not be bothered dragging my kids to the health centre. Unless the back door is open, they have cleverly situated the kids section at the end of a long corridor and the kids have to run a gauntlet of adult coughing, sneezing, snorting… bleh!

Anyway, feeling flush, I coughed up the €25 for a visit to the local private doctor instead. I must have been in there three-quarters of an hour describing in detail every small ailment to afflict each of the children and myself in the past six months (I am Scottish after all. I wanted my money’s worth). Even so, I was surprised the he did not charge me more than the standard consultation fee considering we’d taken up so much time and dealt with the various lurgies of three people. It wasn’t until much later that night after dinner that my husband asked me about Roberto.

“Roberto, who?”

“The neighbour.”

” How would I know? I haven’t seen him all week.”

Well I am sure you can guess the rest. Yes, I’d just sat for the better part of an hour in intimate conversation with my neighbour and I hadn’t even known it. What an idiot!

I do have a saving grace though. I seem to have an astonishing ability to remember voices. Just today a large sweaty man appeared at my door- and not for the first time. I recognized the uniform and the towering stack of green crates from his previous attempts to foist a mountain of Mercadona merchandise on me.

Oh, here we go. In excruciatingly bad Spanish, I explained that this food was not for me. My name was truly not Elena Angela Gutierrez Perez and I had never made an order for home delivery in Tenerife or anywhere else from Merca-bloody-dona.

The poor man waved the delivery form at me and I told him to call the mysterious Elena. He had no phone so I offered my mobile which turned out to have no battery. Okay. I really hadn’t wanted to do this but taking my bad Spanish in hand, I called Ms. Perez on the landline.

She hadn’t said two words before I recognised her voice. “Tu es la madre de Deva?”, I asked her, probably insulting her to the very core as Deva is a young English Mastiff. “Yo soy la madre de Tito.”

We sorted out Mercadona Man at least for this month. Furthermore I now know Deva’s owner’s name and phone number for when he returns next month.

While we can see that Tito is growing quickly he is with us all the time so it doesn’t really register just how big he is getting. At 51/2 months he now tops Skye (our Boxer) by a good inch and a half and there is still possibly another four months growing in him.

In the first picture, Tito has already been with us for a few weeks and had filled out quite a bit. At puppy appointments even the vet laughed out loud when he managed to put on seven kilos in one month.

I know people who walk their dogs at the crack of dawn or in the wee hours of the morning because their pooch has ‘issues’ and they are afraid of what will happen if their path should cross with another dog. My own sweet Skye has occasional problems with other females because I probably under-socialised or over-protected her when she was a puppy.

I don’t want to make the same mistake with Tito and I don’t want him confined to sneaky walks in the dark scurrying for home if another dog is sighted on the horizon. Also with a dog of his size (even now never mind at full maturity) it is vitally important that he be rock solid with all kids and completely trustworthy in the presence of other dogs. I don’t want him hauling me down the street or taking off after a cat or across a busy road…