The local website Lo Que Pasa En Tenerife is a good place to check up on the daily complaints of Tenerife’s residents.

Today one of the topics is the proliferation of shopping carts that are left in the streets of Santa Cruz.

The citizen reporter who scooped this story gripes that this is becoming so common it’s almost fashionable and why won’t people just return the effing  things. Well, okay maybe she didn’t say that exactly but I bet she was thinking it.

The comments on the original page are funny.

One person opines that it is obviously the fault of the South Americans and globalisation. Boy, is that a leap or what?

I don’t think the invasion of the shopping trolleys is a new thing at all. I seem to remember my hometown being festooned with the things when I was growing up (in fact I am sure most people reading this blog must have trolley-jousted at last once when they were small) and I don’t remember one Peruvian or Brazilian living in Cumbernauld at the time.

Where I live in Tenerife there is a bit of community spirit. We swap dishes and gossip at garden bbqs, attend each others kids’ birthdays parties and share two communal shopping trolleys. They are used to ferry shopping from the car park to the houses. As the driver parks the kids scamper off along the path to retrieve the trolleys from the gate of whoever had them last.

Strictly speaking only one of the trolleys is communal. My neighbour (yes, she of the poo-slinging scandal) got so fed up of having her shopping trolley purloined by the vecinos that she wrote her house number and family name on it in big black felt pen. Quite bold of her, I thought, considering she must have half-inched it herself from somewhere. It’s not like you can stop off at the €1 shop and buy yourself a Mercadona or Netto trolley, is it?

Anyone who has ever stood in the plaza in front of the Los Cristianos church at midnight on 31 December can attest to the fantastic firework displays that can be seen on the island. Well tonight and for the next few nights expect to see a different kind of lights in the sky. The annual Perseid Meteor Shower – also known as ‘the tears of Lawrence’ – for their appearance during this Saint’s feats days on August 10th is at its peak tonight.

According to the Tenerife Tourism Board the best spots to watch this spectacular display of shooting stars from are Montaña Guajara or around the Parador de Turismos.

The Perseid Shower can be seen from many places around the world and is a celebrated event in the amateur stargazers calendar. Google has marked the occasion with one of its special logos and Twitter is in on the act with the Twitter Meteor Watch which is being led by the starry-eyed astronomers of Newbury Astronomical Society. To participate you can follow @NewburyAS or search #Meteorwatch.