A morning's escape.

Bananas being irrigated



Instead of being a good girl and getting on with the translation, I snuck out this morning. I intended to go to Playa Nogales, but I wound up in San Andres y Sauces, mostly just mooching around with my camera.

Goodness, it was fun!

My friend Helen had told me that from the big bridge at Los Sauces, you could see banana plantations that had been flattened by the storms this winter. So I went.

The bananas look a mess, but they didn't photograph too well. On the other hand, I did get a nice view of San Andres from up there.

San Andres from Los Sauces bridge

I also got a nice view of the narrow lane that winds down the bottom of the ravine under the bridge. The one I'd always fancied driving along. I had some free time, so why not?

And I did. The lane goes through banana plantations, and I got a nice backlit photo of irrigation, and this one of cut banana stems. See, bananas aren't trees: the stem is the base of lots of leaf stalks, one inside another.

Banana stems

I finally finished an embroidery, even if it's only a little one.

I used to do a lot of cross-stitch, and I have several kits waiting to be sewn. And now I realise that my eyes are getting older, so it seems like a good idea to try to get on with it.

Except that I'm busy.

So I've taken to doing a little while I sit in the car waiting for my son to come out of school. It works. The pig is finished.

And what they say is quite true. That ear is definitely not a silk purse.

The flea market

This morning I popped down to the monthly flea market, mostly just for a change of scene after a couple of days spent catching up with domestic stuff. It was fun. My son didn't find any second hand video games he wanted, but he did get his German sausage - there's a stall that does what you might call deluxe hot dogs, and he's a huge fan. I got some CDs (mostly Queen) and incense.

I should come up for air more often.

Going Bananas!

I finished the rush translation job and decided that I'd earned a morning off. So I went off to Tijarafe to see the banana museum.

I had trouble finding it, but it was a lovely, sunny morning, and the old part of the village was nice, too. I stopped to ask an old lady directions, and we had a nice chat, and I found the museum with her help.

Well, it's a pleasant enough little museum, and I'll blog about it in due course. And I found some other nice little nooks and crannies to photograph. But the highlight of the morning was the church. I popped in on general principles, because a) I was there, b) most old churches on La Palma are pretty and c) it's the oldest one on the island (which was in the text I'd just translated).

I got a big surprise. The test I translated said, "It has been restored, enlarged and altered on several occasions." They weren't kidding. One nave is 15th century, and the other looks like it was built in the 1960s. and the most amazing bit was that the two look good together! (There are more photos on the La Palma blog).

Mostof the morning had gone by then, so I headed back towards the car. I stopped onthe way to photograph a nice old balcony with an old woman on it. As I got closer she waved at me, and I thought perhaps she was annoyed at being photographed. But no. It was the old lady who'd given me directions to the museum and she wanted another quick chat.

I feel I've come up for air.

Of course I should really have stayed home and caught up with cleaning the house, but I'm getting on with that today.

A Thought About Health Care

Thinking about my limited knowledge of different countries health care, I suspect that the crucial thing isn't whether a country's health care is privately-funded or state funded. Nor, I suspect, is it crucial whether the hospitals themselves are run by the state or private business or the Martians.

I think the really vital thing is whether the politicians get the same care as the rest of us. Since they'll take good care of themselves (obviously), that means they'll take care of everybody else in the process.