Blog

Well Spring has definitely arrived in Gran Canaria, or at least the southern half of the island, with temperatures stable at around 80°F. My thoughts should be turning to the preparations for my departure home, but I am suffering from a plethora of electronic malaise. Firstly, the laptop I am currently using for this report, refuses to start more times than it accedes. The fault is not something obvious, but I believe it is caused by the boot-file. My Ipod, the only form of entertainment I have available when driving Bridget, has ceased to perform. The cause of this is not immediately obvious, as the balcony it fell from is a mere 15’ from the patio and it fell flat on its’ face rather than on an edge or corner! It does show a message telling me to use Itunes Recovery, but then won’t actually allow me to use any controls; not even to turn it off. To complete the hat-trick my...

Bridget and I have now been on the island for three and a half months. Up until yesterday (17th February) we had only had one rain shower that lasted less than fifteen minutes. Then yesterday we were visited by a mini tornado! This was the first time I had witnessed a tornado and it was quite spectacular even though it was only a small one. It was bright sunshine, although it had been windy all day, then without any preliminaries there was a whistling sound and everything not fastened down was flying through the air. Fortunately, only minor damage was sustained within the complex although when the tornado left it brought down a street light onto a car causing it severe damage. Today we had heavy cloud most of the morning and early afternoon, then it rained for thirty minutes. The temperature dropped to just under 70°F and television was reporting that snow had fallen in the mountains. However, by 5:00...

On the 16th of this month it will be the 10th anniversary of my being Bridget’s legal keeper. I thought it might be the right time to do a review of our time together, but then realised that not a lot has happened. Bridget still looks pristine and I am still blissfully unappreciative of her other attributes. I believe I can say in all modesty that I have looked after her as well as anybody could be expected too. In return she has contributed, in a small way, to my travel experience. Seriously, as the pages of this blog witness, we have had a ball. Our appreciation goes out to all the people around the world that were so helpful and hospitable, and our prayers are that the politicians around the world start to work for the betterment of their country folk and put aside their own desires for power and international status. Perhaps they should consider that leaders such as Gandhi...

Well the main reason for being here, the weather, has not failed to impress with only one exception when it attempted to rain, but failed. There has been a couple of overcast days and one where the temperature dropped to 18C but the rest of the time has been bright with temperatures in the low/mid twenties. I have maintained my regime of four mornings a week at the gym, one day a week walking in the mountains and the rest of the time completing normal daily living tasks such as shopping, washing, cleaning, etc. or lazing on the beach. An unexpected portion of culture was absorbed watching a performance of ‘The Nutcracker’ by the Moscow Ballet Company. Such a highlight is almost unheard of in Maspalomas, but there is a relatively new theatre here and they are testing the populations’ response to different events. The almond blossom is out all over the mountains (well all over the trees that is), about a month...

We have been on the island for three weeks now. I have fallen into a routine of visits to the gym, mountain walking and lazing around. We are staying at the same complex as on our previous visit and so know some of our neighbours. Maspalomas itself has changed little except that the local authority is constantly upgrading the pedestrian walkways. Also several of the hotels and tourist bungalow complexes have been given facelifts. The other welcome improvement is to the roads into the island interior. From Maspalomas the GC60 is the main route to the centre of the island and the mountain range. This is a route Bridget and I normally take each week when I go mountain walking and it has been both widened a little and resurfaced. Being a mountain route the road is both steep and very winding, which is great MG motoring but, if it is full of potholes, can be very wearing on Bridget. I have already...