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!

There are  only two things that you really, really need to bring with you in order to enjoy an unforgettable holiday in Tenerife.

Forget the Factor 25 and you may very well end up with a sunburn that you’ll never forget but leave behind your common sense and you may get burned in another way entirely.

I’ve posted before about Tenerife Timeshare Touts and there are articles on eTenerife both about Cockroaches (no, they don’t bite!) and Tenerife Con Men but an email I received the other day from Sinead Cleary prompted me to bring the subject of Tenerife Rip Off Merchants and Other Insects up again.

Sinead had a fabulous holiday. She thinks Tenerife is a ’smashing’ place and was particularly  pleased to find so many things to do here over and above the typical sun/sand/beach holiday. She should have left Tenerife ready to go home and tell all her mates what a brilliant time she had. Instead, while she made sure to include her positive experiences of the island in her email, the overall impression she’ll be talking about back home is getting ripped off by the camera cowboys.

I asked Sinead’s permission to reprint her email both here and on eTenerife and I couldn’t agree more with her answer. She told me to go right ahead because “…the sooner these feckers stop getting away with making a fool out of us tourists the better!”

Just back from holiday in Tenerife and first off have to say what a smashing place it is…..  Not just a sun/beach holiday like many think, but lots of activities and fun things to do also!  However, to get to the point, I think people should really be made very aware of the con-men in the electronic shops, not all, but fair to say, the majority!

Every second shop is an electrical shop and they all sell mainly the same things with really really cheap prices ie. less than 100 euro for really good cameras and camcorders that are on display.  THESE PRICES MEAN NOTHING!!!!

They will get you into the shop, give you a seat, a drink, fill you with bull-sh*t and crap and try sell you another really expensive and “better” camera.  They will blatently straight out tell you the one that you want is crap and talk you into giving them way more money for something you don’t want.  When calling their bluff once you know their scam and insist on having the original camera at the price quoted, you will hear lines like, “the boss is out”, “call back tomorrow or monday and I’ll have it”, “we’re out of stock at the moment”, “Will have to get it from another shop, but for 50 euro extra!!”, and last but not least, “are you SURE you don’t want this way more expensive one???!!!”

If you’re sucker enough to fall for it, which in fairness they’re so good many would, you’re probably better off buying at home, as you end up paying not only the tax which is supposed to be tax free but you end up paying maybe double what you would at home!  TELL THEM WHERE TO GO!

One guy that was honest, owns a shop called Boots and is called Ricky.  Next beach to Fanabe.  He Rocks!

I should say I have no idea who Ricky from BOOTS is, I’ve never met him or done business with that shop, but after her bad experiences if Ricky’s honesty impressed Sinead enough for her to give him a special mention then I reckon he deserves to be included here as proof that there are good and trustworthy camera shops in Tenerife.

I don’t tend to buy make-up much. What I do have I’ve had for years or has been bought for me perhaps as a not so subtle hint that time marches on and leaves the most fresh-faced looking like they need a good sand-blasting

That’s why of the two mascaras I own, one is so dry it won’t open and the other so gummy it clumps lashes together and makes them look like a row of fat spiders have made camp along my eye-lids. Seeing as how the UK celebrates Mothering Sunday this week and I am as likely to get a pressie for that as I am to get one for Dia del Madre which is to say as likely as I am to win the next Euromillions while galloping bare back and naked through a field of tajinaste with a pineapple on my head, I decided to buy myself a new mascara for Mother’s Day.

There are three perfumerias in this little town. Three! You’d think they would be cost cutting like crazy to stay in business. I toyed with the idea of a super cheapo mascara from the Chinese todo shop but remembering horror stories tales of lead based Korean make-up from my youth (yes, I can remember that far back, thank you), I decided to invest in something a little more up market.

As I probably won’t splurge on another mascara until after the 2012 apocalypse, I figured I could push the boat out a little bit. I wandered into one of these scented emporiums of vanity and immediately all the salesgirls bristled with suspicion. Why do they always make me feel as if I am in there to pocket something?

Making my way to the shiny bay in the centre of the shop which sparkled and glittered with fancy wands and compacts, I looked, in vain for a price tag. Mascaras there were, by the dozen, but not one price in sight. God, I hate that, don’t you?

A powdered and perfumed sales assistant glued herself to my side and whinneyed through her nose when I asked why nothing had a price on it. The implication seemed to be that if you have to ask, you can’t afford it anyway. I asked for the prices of mascara and she babbled on about the ‘newest one’. There are lengthening mascaras, thickening mascaras, mascaras to make your lashes lustrous and ones to make them defined. Why? Why can’t they make one good mascara that does everything. Hello, Estee Lauder, there’s an idea for your next sales gimmick.

Anyway, my pan-sticked friend returned glowing to report that the mascara she was waving in her hand cost only €28. When I stopped laughing, she assured me she wasn’t actually joking. What’s more, obviously this pàrticular mascara was worth the steep price because it vibrated.

The world has gone barking mad, if you ask me.

The sales in Tenerife (and presumably everywhere else) start off slow and then avalanche to huge discounts towards the close of the sales season in March. It’s one thing knowing that you should hold on to whatever dosh you’ve held back from Christmas for another few weeks and quite another to be cringing in embarrassment at the sight of your kid’s skinny ankles poking out the end of every pair of trousers he possesses.

So off we headed to Santa Cruz where my other half decided that Decathalon was the place to go. Que tonterias! What a nightmare. Of course, the sales were barely underway which we expected but the store layout ond the price marking was a joke. While there is a ‘kid’ section it seems very much given over to little girls while the most obvious boys’ bit was from 6 months to 4 years only. Where do all the 5 year old kids get their chandals then?

After much scraping and scrabbling through confusing and poorly marked racks I did find some trousers for the little guy plus stocked up on the Domyo t-shirts for him which are always a good buy and last forever but it wasn’t an enjoyable experience and I won’t be heading back there any time soon.

At least not until we are in the 75 – 80% discount period of the sales.

As for buying goodies for myself in the sales, who needs to go to Santa Cruz? I’ll be heading to Mango in San Eugenio for my loot.

It’s one thing to resign yourself to growing old gracefully if you looked like Audrey Hepburn to begin with but the only famous person I have ever been likened too is Boy George. (Thankfully that was in his Karma Chameleon years). Unfortunately now that my dumpy self and Scottish complexion are in my forties, I find myself magnetically attracted to the bottles of snake oil that stuff the pharmacy shelves. I fondle the packaging and slyly read the box ready to tell the assistant, should she ask, that I’m looking for a present for my Mum.

Stopping by the Parafarmacia Vera at the bottom of Las Galletas today to pick up some kids tutti-fruti toothpaste I couldn’t help myself drifting towards the wonder creams. From a distance a rack of silver and blue boxes caught my eye and I squinted myopically to see the legend – Snail Dribble. What?

I couldn’t resist turning the box over and instead of Spanish, I found a French translation, Bave d’Escargot (Snail Slobber) and I thanked God that no matter how crinkly I got I was never, ever going to be deperate enough to lather myself in snail slime – I mean, horrific as it sounds snail dribble isn’t accurate is it? I’m sure that silvery trail comes out of quite a different part of the snail’s anatomy…

The assistant who no doubt thought she was on to a good thing shot over to let me know what a fabulous difference this miracle ointment would make to me. Giving her a look which I hope conveyed how silly was her initial notion that my skin was in any way in need of snail dribble, I assured her that I was in fact only looking for possible Christmas presents.

For my mother!

John & Nicky have some special offers on selected items at Essential Quality Linen in C.C Fanabe Plaza.

Treat yourself to a twin pack of bounce pillows for €10.50 with free pillow cases included or for only €11.70 you can take home all sizes and colours of single fitted bed sheets. Special deals are available for multiple apartment owners and if you mention reading about them here on Tenerife Tattle they might just throw in extra discount.