If you have been popping into Tenerife Tattle over the last few days, you might very well have thought that I had finally blown my last gasket what with all the design and colour changes.  It has and continues to be an interesting transition from the previous theme which I felt had become too heavy to this one, which was, I felt nice and airy and flexible. Until that is, it started forcing an authentication box on all visitors.

How annoying. Anyway, just like that sweet young thing Amy Winehouse, it was time to go Back to Black which is the Suffusion theme stripped back to basics and start again.

So, if over the next days, you happen back to TT and it has changed AGAIN, it is not because I have flipped my lid.  I’m just fiddling until I get things working properly..

By the way, I know I could be doing all this faffing about in the background without letting the whole world witness my disasterous mistakes … but where is the fun in that?

It has been some time since my last pair of glasses gave up the ghost. I’m not sure if the final straw was when my son accidentally dropped them in the toilet or if it was the dog sooking off the elastoplast that held the glasses’ legs on that finally did it but finally, sadly, I bade my beloved old specs goodbye and resolved to get a new pair in the following few days.

Well, one thing after another and days turned into weeks and weeks into months. I think the world has a certain special charm when seen through a constant fuzzy haze and who cares about littering and graffiti when they are perceived only as pretty colours anyway? No doubt I have offended or confused more than one person as I sailed past them in the street totally oblivious to anything that is going on outside of about a five-foot radius.

I am dreadfully short-sighted but it doesn’t bother me too much. After all, I work at home all day in front of a computer. I only need to see far enough to recognise the keyboard. I suppose I could have gone on quite happily in my soft-focus bubble had I not taken a trip to Carrefour with my nearest and dearest.

After my mother and I had wittered round the shops for a while and hubby had stamped off to the car, my mother decided she needed to visit the loo. There was a bit of confusion between her going in and me coming out, and before you know it I was stranded alone at the door to the carpark. There was a vast sea of cars in front of me and not a nearest or a dearest in sight.

Okay, so there was nothing for it but to plunge off into the murk and trust my sense of direction. Some time later I was rescued from spending the night wandering about the Carrefour carpark by my mother and husband who had been watching me from afar (probably giggling hysterically and taking bets on how long it would take for me to get arrested).

After that experiences glasses were placed firmly back on my To Do list but first they had to fit on my Can Afford list. I was horrified at the quote I got in the first opticians I tried – €500! Jeez I need a pair of specs not the Hubble Telescope!

Next stop was a shop in San Eugenio which had Rebajas signs plastered all over its window. The sales woman talked down to me and stalked my husband round the shop like a hungry lion. The ‘great deal’ at this shop included not charging for an eye test if you end up buying specs from them and a 10% discount on frames. Big deal! Specs from here would cost about €360. My husband was quite happy for us to go ahead and order them but the sales lady had put me off and I would have rather gnawed off my own leg than throw any of my hard-earned cash in her direction.

And then inspiration struck. Hubby looked up a shop he knew from Paris called Afflelou on the internet. Yes! There are two in Santa Cruz. Had I but been able to see it in the first place, Afflelou, is right there in front of the food checkouts in the same Carrefour that kicked off my latest quest for specs and they have a great offer on right now. Buy one set and get a second for €1!

Brilliant. But even better is that the first pair have a standard price. It is about €79 for under 16 (it is some time since I could claim to be under 16 so I didn’t pay to much attention to that offer), €129 for those over €16 and €329 for bi-focals. Imagine that, two pairs of bi-focals for €330!

In my case, I wanted a pair of ordinary glasses and a pair of sunglasses both medicated for my short sight. I had to pay an extra €50 for the sunnies but in the end, I have now got two fab pairs of specs for a total of €180!

So happy as I am at the outcome of my tale, I have two bits of advice to share. The first one is, if you need specs get yourself over to the Afflelou store in Carrefour Santa Cruz before 28 February at which time this fab deal will expire. And the second is to Mr. Alain Afflelou himself. If you are kind enough to offer such a fabulous deal to the optically-challenged and cash-strapped, I suggest you make the posters advertising it at least ten feet tall so people like me can actually see it when we are shopping in the supermarket right in front of your store.

Credit to Dimitris Kritsotakis for the great picture!

Part of the problem with finding a job here in Tenerife is finding legitimate offers. Those who scour the positions vacant columns of the local Spanish newspapers are usually disappointed to find that many of the jobs listed are not for jobs at all but ads for specialist training supposedly required before applying for specific jobs.

These are always set out as if there are scores of attractive positions available and only those who have paid for and taken the training on offer are likely to be accepted. What a load of rubbish!

Still, if you are looking for a job in Tenerife and are not interested in the scratch card brigade, don’t want to be a PR pulling people off the street and into bars and restaurants and you can’t sing a note what options have you got?

I recently stumbled across something you might want to look into. Called it is an employment site which does list a sizable number of jobs across Spain and a couple of hundred current ones for right here in Tenerife. The cowboy training mob seem not to have caught on yet, so the offers are realistic.

You need to understand some Spanish in order to scan the ads but they are easy to navigate and there is even the odd offering for English speakers including one for an English native speaking Kundenbetreuer for an International Bank. That is amusing considering that I am a native English speaker and I wouldn’t know a Kundenbetreuer if I fell over one in the park but there you go. If you happen to be a jobless Kundenbetreuer now you know where to look for a new job in Tenerife.

You can search the Infojob database via location, job type and by keyword. Try using ‘ingles’ in the search box to see what you come up with today.

The other side of this coin of course is that any business who lists their jobs vacant on this site are guaranteed a certain level of familiarity with the internet. A good start for those advertising web design and marketing positions of which there are a few.

A new BBC1 television programme is underway and it is about the scams, cons and problems experienced by tourists abroad. They want to know if you’ve been had.

Examples of scams are:

-  bags/luggage stolen

-  tricked into boat trips

- taken advantage of in Taxis

-  locals posing as a uniformed officials.

If you experienced any of these or any other situations that conned you out of  money or put you in a tricky spot then then Auntie Beeb wants to know.

Post a comment below or if you prefer to be contacted privately then send me an email and I will pass it on.

Even before the economic crisis Tenerife’s animal  shelters struggled to feed the animals they had in their charge. Now though, in the current economic climate things are even worse and the need for funds to care for the animals that have been abandoned or have strayed is desperate.

The shelters are already full to bursting and yet they are somehow supposed to struggle on with more animals in their care and no funding. The shelters have no more room and no more money. They need help – and they get next to none of that from the government here in Tenerife.

The shelters raise money through charity events, car boot sales and by donations. If you can help in any way, please call K9 on 608 121 081 (Eng) or 670 845 243 (Esp).

Tenerife’s abandoned dogs have their own blog which publishes news on current events, forthcoming fundraisers, etc. If you want more information on the various shelters, vets, trainers, dog kennels, Tenerife Dogs is the place to go.