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!

In a bid to cause as little disturbance as possible the final asphalting of the Añaza to Caletillas stretch of the Southern Tenerife highway (TF1) is being done between 22:00 and 06:00 hours right through the night. This caused signifcant tailbacks on Saturday night but quite likely was nowhere near as inconvenient as if the twenty kilometre stretch had been closed off during the day.

Even so, from today and for the next four or five days there will be one lane cut between Taibaba and Añanza(going to Santa Cruz) so expect delays if you have to drive to Santa Cruz this week. The lighting and signage has also to be done so some interference or blockage of the slow  lanes of the carriageways in both directions can be expected until that is finished.

TF1 Roadworks

The Tenerife Design Festival (TDF) is dedicated to fusing the ‘current trends of design with the main features of the Canarian identity’ and focusses on the three key concepts of local identity, landscape contrast and tourism.

Expect the unexpected during that week as designers from around the world get together to turn Tenerife into a ’seething mass of creativity and design’.

Oooo er. I’m not so sure about the seething mass bit. Whoever wrote the English blurb on the TDF website has done so in that annoyingly arty-farty nonsensical wittering beloved of those who think design concepts have to be drowned in a bucket of words before the rest of us plebs can get the point (or lack thereof).

Here slighty toned down are the descriptions of the TDF sections taken from the Tenerife Design Festival website.

TDFSigno – designers, industry and craftsmen collaborating on new products and ways of development which involve both fresh  ideas and traditional Canarian concepts.

TDFAtmósfera – ominously threatening to ‘involve the public’, TDFAtmósfera promises to bathe Santa Cruz in a wash of exhibitions and urban interventions. If you venture into large spaces within the city during this week in October such as the TEA, La Recova or the port itself expect to be pounced on by a creative installation or two.

TDFLab – three-day workshops for professionals, students and general participants to experiment with different ways to  generate new objects, graphics and interventions in different spaces with a focus on the interaction between design and the Canarian environment.

TDFAward cunningly sponsored by Turismo de Tenerife proposes Tenerife Design Paradise, an international prize, which encourages designers to work on elements that will make up a dream beach of the future.  Based on the idea “Design Paradise” the aim is the creation of products that may be further developed later by the sponsor to enhance the tourism experience.

TDFSolution brings together different professional approaches to spread and support advances in culture, innovation and design. The Symposium will consist of the presentation of works by businesses, local, national and international designers, stirred into action by a critic or analyst. The point of departure will be TDF’s three central concepts: nature, local identity and tourism.

See the Tenerife Design Festival website for more information including a Programme of Events and a Registration page which showing fabulous international creativity is only available in Spanish. According to the translation it seems registrations will not be open till September:

Inscriptions

To participate in various workshops and activities of TDF, you can simply register by filling out a form. In September the program will be more detailed for you to decide which section is more suited to your interests …

But you should be aware: the seats are limited!

The Consejería de Sanidad of the Canary Islands Government is investigating two new cases of suspected H1N1 (otherwise know as swine flu) report Diario de Avisos. The article roughly translates to say that one person is a youngster who is being treated at Hospital Universitario de Canarias in Tenerife and was recently in Mexico and the other a 58 year old man who has recently returned from the US and is currently being treated in Gran Canaria.

Both previous suspected cases of this new strain of influenza A in the Canarias proved negative. Results for these latest cases will take a minimum of 48 hours.

I don’t think Wilson Pickett is in town so if you have no prior committments why not indulge in a bit of pure nostalgia and belt out all your favourite hits from the classic movie The Committments at the Tenerife auditorium.

Scary to think the movie was released in 1991! I would have been about … ahhh… never mind. Anyway, tickets cost €20 from the box office or you can visit the Auditoria de Tenerife website for more information or groan along with Tenerife Matters in the pun-filled announcement of The Committments which they published way back in February.

In the meantime  just to get you in the mood here is a trailer for the Alan Parker film.

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.

The Tenerife Tourist Board wants us all to know about Another Side of Tenerife.

The beautifully produced video features Peter Nunn as he investigates the island and talks to local guides and residents, including travel writer Joe Cawley who makes the point that indulging in Tenerife’s culture is as enjoyable as the typical sun, sand and sea tourist attractions.

The video includes footage of Teide, sun-bathing whales, various hotels, a wine-tasting visit to a bodega, the Tenerife Arts Museum and Tenerife Auditorium in Santa Cruz and more.

The campaign’s intention is to show how much more there is to Tenerife than its popular beach resorts. I’d say the video performs that function very well.