Category: Gran Canaria

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...

It's almost time that Bridget and I weren't here. After almost 18 months in the UK it's time to take the brakes off and get rolling. We leave on the 25th Oct, destination Gran Canaria again. We will be taking the ferry from Huevla to Las Palmas on the 30th October, arriving on the 1st November and staying for the winter. To get to Huevla we are taking a ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao, then driving through Salamanca and Bandajoz. Need our sea legs! The plan, or as near as I ever get to having one, is to return in the spring via the Balkans. We have never visited Croatia, Bosnia, Kosova, or Serbia before so it will be a bit of adventure. The intention is to go as far as Albania and possibly Moldova or, if the fighting has ceased, Ukraine. I don't know why, but for some reason Moldova never seems like a real country to me (no disrespect meant). The name conjours...

I am managing to stay sane, or at least I am no less sane than I was before I arrived here in Gran Canaria. I keep reminding myself that laying in the sun, warm and bored is infinitely better than being at home, wet, cold and bored! However, as usual when I have a date for doing anything, the fact that I know I am starting the return journey to the UK in seven weeks’ time I just want to get on with it. There are few things guaranteed to frustrate me more than waiting. The time has given me the chance to start investigating some possible new projects. Having decided to hold on to Bridget for the foreseeable future (2 or 3 days) I think I may treat her to some upgrades. Front runners are; a five speed gear box, all round telescopic suspension and all round disc brakes. This will be in addition to new stub axles (one is...

Whilst sitting here musing in my ‘duplex’ in Gran Canaria, I am reflecting on, why here? Come to that everything is reflecting thanks to the INCESSANT RAIN! Ah yes, I came here to escape the English winter. I am reliably informed that during the first two days of last week we received a whole year’s quantity of rain. Since then we have had three sunny days and dull cloud for the rest of the time. Now, according to the weather bureau we have our very own depression. Oh lucky us, it’s caused by the weather…. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that a Canary Island hurricane is brewing up just in time for the Christmas Season. In fact I have already made preparations naming, it aptly for this island, “Puff, the Magic Drag-Queen” Yesterday the authorities announced that all the schools on the island would be closed today because of the extreme weather forecast (I thought it was only the NUT’s...

I have now been on the island for two months, which is a third of my sentence served. Mr Innes at the Car Club has quite rightly taken me to task for not posting anything on here for several weeks and I should have enough time spare to do so. I have settled in really quite well and developed a weekly routine. I have joined a very well equipped gym and go there Monday and Friday mornings, and depending on other activities some Wednesdays. I go into the interior of the island once a week and walk around the mountains which are beautiful with some great views. The island is very varied in its vegetation with the north being really quite green and the south, very barren. I have fallen in with a group of classic car enthusiasts and attended a couple of their Sunday displays for the general public (similar to the shopping/garden centre event the MGCC do). There are some...