Everywhere you look in Tenerife you will see banana plantations – or you won’t see them -  but they are there, hidden behind that tatty looking grey net that festoons the island.

Now, for the very first time, Tenerife is hosting a banana festival complete with all sorts of wacky competitions and events – banana sculpting for example.

There will be prizes for the best banana inspired dish and plenty of banana booze as well as non-alcoholic banana drinks for the kids. It sounds like a lot of fun and I am promised more bananas than I can carry if I go along with the weans so I guess I’ll see you there.  I’ll be the one checking out the banana rum…
Festival Del Platano

April 24 & 25th 2010

Troya, Playa de las Americas.

Does anyone know where the Three Greyhounds bar is? And no, smartypants, I don’t mean the one in Knutsford, Cheshire.

Apparently there is one in Tenerife somewhere and Michelle has been hunting for it high and low.

Should any kind TT reader know the place in question, please post an address and/or phone number in the comments below.

(And you might want to tell the landlord that it is cheap as chips to advertise his bar on eTenerife if he wants to drop me a line about that. )

Muchas gracias

The big parade in Santa Cruz which is scheduled for Tuesday 16th February is the Carnaval event, the one that all the tourists are here in Tenerife to see; the one ’second only to Rio’. But it is far from the only Carnaval event.

Every town in Tenerife has its own Carnaval with the one in Los Cristianos which runs from 5th to 14th of March and has a Viva Mexico theme this year being the last.

Even though the Arona Carnaval is not until next month, schools are out next week and so those schools which wish to do so will be having their Kids’ Parade tomorrow.

For whatever reasons my kids’ school was a bit of a wet blanket last year with none of the outings and fun stuff the kids had got to do in the previous years. There was no Carnaval Parade, no Canarian Day celebration nor big organised march through the streets to meet the Three Kings and have a picnic in the street.

All their excursions were curtailed too. No visit to the bomberos or to the airport or day spent at the Quimpi farm or environmentally-minded expedition up the side of the Red Mountain.

Although you might think the overall recession was behind the moratorium on fun outings I have a suspicion it was more to do with the teachers lobbying for better pay and jibing at the extra duties required of them in organising and sheperding these missions when they are not paid enough for their daily grind as it is.

Anyway this year somebody put the Ooooh! back in school and we are having a Carnaval Parade. Yaaay! The kids are all aquiver and very much looking forward to their special day tomorrow.

The following information should therefore be of interest to you whether you like kids and want to watch them all march past in their Carnaval disguises or whether you loathe the little monsters and want to stay the hell out of Dodge.

If you are in the Las Galletas neighbourhood tomorrow, the kids will emerge blinking into the sunlight at approximately 12.30. Some kids will be blinking more than others, especially my son who for some mysterious reason is being dressed by his teacher as a traffic light.

My daughter and her classmates will be dressed as natives of La Palma complete with white frocks (at least the girls will be in frocks) and big floppy dress hat.  This year the school chose the outfits and ordered them from El Kilo. Saved a lot of messing about of course but in typical Tenerife fashion we only just got the blouse and skirt home now (2.p.m. on Thursday the day before the big event) to fix or fiddle with if it is too big or small.

As is traditional, all the parents will be there, stepping on each others toes and jostling for position to get the best shots of their babies. It is all in good fun but if you should be there and happen to get a belt in the ribs, well, I apologise in advacne but you really should know better than to get between a mum and her dookied-up darlings.

What a breakthrough! The collected minds of government and business have come up with two prototype beer glasses, designed to resist breaking into deadly shards should they come into contact with someone’s face.

As glassing each other down the local seems to have become something of a national sport in Britain  (around 87,000 injuries each year  in England and Wales alone), this initiative will enable everyone to continue to get bladdered and smash each other’s face in without fear of actual prosecution.

Not that there has been much fear of prosecution  in the UK lately, unless of course you are a home-owner intent on doing grievous bodily harm to the rabid gang that are in the process of murdering your family and making off with your new plasma screen t.v.

Still, that half and hour in front of the judge fairly cuts into drinking time and it gets pretty boring to keep having to come up with excuses for breaking the ASBO, so full marks to the bigwigs who dreamt this one up.

I bet it won’t be long after the introduction of these new glasses until smashing yourself in the face after downing a pint becomes a drinking game. In a race to finish your pint of Carling Black Label,  winner is the first one to glass himself.

Yikes,  the bars of Tenerife will be awash in blood unless they put up signs to tell that punters that glass is breakable.

As promised, Tenerife Magazine are offering another fab prize for December- a five star one bedroom apartment in Pearly Grey Resort, Callao Salvaje, and entering is easy peasy. All you’ve got to do is sign up (or already be a member of the Tenerife Magazine Facebook page) and also sign as a fan of the Ingane Yami Facebook page.

Ingame Yami is a charitable project to build a special village for young AIDS orphans in Durban South Africa – definitely a worthwhile cause  – which is strongly supported by Pearly Grey Resort and all its staff here in Tenerife.

I find it quite touching that the entrance requirements for this month’s Tenerife Magazine competition does not include becoming a fan on Facebook of the actual sponsor, Pearly Grey Resort or anything specific to Pearly Grey at all – all associated publicity is aimed at Ingame Yami.

Especially for that, I would urge you to become a fan of Pearly Grey as well – though as stated you do not have to do so to enter the competition.

Here are the links you need:

• Tenerife Magazine Facebook page
• Ingane Yami Facebook Page
• Pearly Grey Resort Facebook page

Tenerife Magazine December Competition
One Week, 5 star accommodation in Pearly Grey Resort

The Pearly Grey Resort is perched on the cliff top looking out across the Atlantic, with great views of La Gomera. Your 5 star one bedroom self catering apartment, has the pick of the views, and has all modern comforts for one lucky couple.

How To Enter

It’s FREE and simple to enter our competition, you just need to be a Facebook member of Tenerife Magazine. We also need you to sign up to Pearly Grey’s Ingane Yami charity page. This is a special project to build a village for AIDS orphans in Durban, South Africa.

Competition Rules

The draw will be made on 11th January 2010, and is for a one bedroom luxury self catering apartment for one week. The prize is valid for one year, subject to availability, and is not exchangeable for cash.

And finally, I am pleased to tell you that the winner of the Tenerife Magazine launch competition for a week’s holiday in luxurious Sands Beach Lanzarote, Debbie Schilling, was finally found. Whew! Thought for a minute I’d have to bite the bullet and volunteer to go myself. (Oh dream on!)

The tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 killed 230,000 people. The enormity of the loss of life is hard to digest.  It is hard to believe that that many people lost their lives in one cataclysmic event. But is it any easier to imagine the 260,000 men who will die in Western Europe this year from cancer? Or the 277,000 women in Central & Eastern Europe who will succumb to the same disease?

In fact, altogether across Europe over a million people will die this year from cancer. Worldwide, the figure is somewhere near 8 million.

According to the UK CancerStats site more than 1 in 3 people develop some form of cancer in their lifetime. The good news is that the average ten-year cancer survival rate has doubled over the last 30 years and more than seven out of ten children with cancer are now successfully treated compared with fewer than 3 in 10 in the 1960s.

Also according to the CancerStats site, cancer is the number one fear amongst Brits, topping that of heart disease or terrorism. How much scarier then must it be to contract the disease while living in a foreign country, with minimal medical insurance and perhaps not much in the way of family support?

The annual Walk For Life in Tenerife raises money in support of the Spanish cancer charities AECC and Amate. In a sea of pink solidarity, men, women and children walk the 3.5 km from the Mediterranean Palace to the Sal Y Tien plaza. As it says on the Carrera por la Vida website “Once a year, to walk is to support!”

As an expat in Tenerife, you might wonder if these charities are available to you should you fall ill with cancer. For the answer you should read the moving account of one British pensioner in Tenerife Magazine who received such support from AECC that she says they made a terrible time bearable.

Whether you are in town as an expat or a tourist, all you need to do is show up – in a pink t-shirt if you have one – at 10.30 on Sunday 13th December and join the walk.  Sponsorships and donations are passed on to the relevant charities under the guidance of a Notary and with full transparency so you know every penny is going to the aid of somebody who needs it.

You might also announce your participation on the Tenerife Magazine Walk for Life participants page on Facebook.

This could be YOU!

Have you seen the new Tenerife Magazine yet? It is FAB! Being 100% virtual, I can’t say it has hit the streets running but the very first issue comes with a brilliant competition giveaway – a holiday for up to four at the gorgeous Sands Beach in Lanzarote!

All you need to do to enter is become a fan of the Tenerife Magazine page on Facebook. The draw is to be held on November 30th and results will be announced via Facebook.

It is hard cheddar if you are not on Facebook, I am afraid but not to worry. I have it on good authority that the next competition will be run through a different medium – maybe Twitter.  Perhaps the next competition will even be for a Tenerife related prize?