It was a baking hot day and we’d have loved to have cooled down in the cove only the waves were misbehaving.
A couple of the more determined members of our CanariaWays https://canariaways.com party braved it in an eddying pool.
And they got their second wind for the rocky, body-sapping climb up to Afur amd a Franco-based pub… but that’s another story.
By hook or by crook
This story is about the reviving qualities of water and specifically ready-made water slides which you can find too in Tenerife.
And which big, and small, kids love.
Tenerife has one of the best, Siam Park has a rubber boat water slide, Mekong Rapids, or try the Dragon, a vertical zero gravity funnel for up to four.
One-day tickets begin at €25 for a child and from €37 for adults. See www.siamparks.net.
Sunny all year round
And, of course, the answer to a sizzling day in Tenerife is a November day, and here is one Canaria Ways prepared earlier.
The Gods on Mt Olympus have calmed the unclean air where all our spray has been collecting.
And Athene has seen to it that her showpiece Acropolis and the other outdoor archaeological sites have been reopened.
Standing on the very stones where Socrates and his toga-clad pals scratched their beards and worked out the world was worth the circuitous route to get there… https://athensattica.com and My Greek odyssey.
At the Parthenon
With the UK exploring an air bridge to Greece on account of its low R rate we will all reconnect with the great civilisations of Hellas soon.
Check out your government’s health and travel guidelines.
Nobody likes their passport pic, particularly now we can’t even smile.
Mine’s looks like it could have been taken more than 100 years ago when they were first introduced.
But we don’t even flinch at being asked now for it and I suspect we’ll quickly get used to the technology being rolled out by the Canary Islands to get us back travelling.
The Canary Islands (Spain) and the World Tourism Organisation have agreed a flight in July for the world’s first ‘safe’ flight using the Digital Health Passport, developed by Canarian firm Hi + Card
I can just taste that Tenerife Shakespearean wine Malvasia.
If your family is driving you up the wall you may be taking sanctuary in a TV family… me, I’ve been a fly on the wall at the Pritchards and the Dunphys in LA.
Back then, and it’s only a year ago, I would call on the services of the finest freelancers who never let me down.
Star women: The Irish at IPW
On the other side
Now I’m on the other side of the fence I have been glad to say that the holiday providers I cultivated then and many writers and editors remain the best of friends.
It’s what I use my one walk a day for… to go to the offie,
No. that’s not a misprint… I’ve been isolating from the office for nigh on a year since branching out on my own.
You may know it in your country as the liquor store or the wine store.
I was relieved then to hear that the offie ranks along the chemist and the supermarket as one of the stores that can stay open during the Coronavirus crisis.
Ned in Glasgow and NZ
Now we each do things a little bit differently and, at its rawest, the Glasgow offie is a cultural touchpoint in itself.
Now unsurprisingly I never saw a bottle of this New Zealand Cabernet Sauvignon, The Ned, in my offie when I was growing up.
It has gooseberry tastings don’t you know.
The drink du jour of The Glasgow Ned (the Non-Educated Delinquent) was, and still is, I dare say, Buckfast tonic wine.
Buckie is best drunk from out of the bottle and wrapped in brown paper while sitting on a park bench.
Not perhaps what the monks in the West Country of England had invented it for I should imagine.
The sight of a Ned. or Dublin gurrier, or whatever you call them in your country, swigging booze on a park bench might not be what you’d want to see…
When you’re pushing a pram.
Boston, full of beans
And I was reminded of how the good folk of Boston deal with that dilemma when I was watching the movie Ted 2 the other night.
Mark Wahlberg was drinking his can, which was wrapped in brown paper, with his Teddy bear on Boston Common.
And it took me back to the English guy who had attached himself to our group, Nick, on our post-University summer in Boston.
And didn’t know about the rule about drinking in public and the need to cover it in wrapping which he had some trouble in explaining to the cops.
‘OK to throw tea into the harbour and blame it on the Indians but God help you if you drink a can of beer without the brown paper covering it!’ Officer.
That Boston summer remains a glowing memory and Beantown came back on the radar yesterday when I was invited out for August, COVID-19 allowing.
So whether it’s Prost, Failte, Salute, Na zdravi or just Cheers I’m looking you right in the eye and toasting our holiday providers… #DontCancelPostpone.
They are teasing us with the Caribbean. And I need little tickling.
Eleven nights self-catering (just buy a bottle of rum and pineapple juice) at the 3*+ Divi Southwards Beach Resort. Flights from Dublin, From €1599pps.
The twin challenges in Travel just now are facing down the Coronavirus and sustainability.
Who would bet against it being those clever South Africans at finding an antidote to the disease?
Particularly as they already have a handle on climate change with their magic plant, the spekboom, the answer to flight shame, flygskam, This plant can save the world.
Which is why I’m flagging up Cassidy Travel’s www.cassidytravel.ie six-night Cape Town escape from €819pps including flights from Dublin.
Explore the Winelands, the Garden Route and take in a Big Five Safari Tour.
You’ll be staying at the 4* The Hyde Hotel in the cosmopolitan Sea Point area.