Gran Tarajal

We decided to observe the Sunday day of rest principle and have a day off from boat jobs, cleaning etc. We had a leisurely start with some reading in bed followed by a cheese and tomato omelette for breakfast. Kevin was reaching the end of “The Mauritius Command” book four of the Patrick O’Brien series and so was not to be disturbed as there were apparently various battles and other manly naval pursuits occurring. I contented myself with my Spanish lessons from my new book, completing the first four lessons in my new exercise book, just like school! The book is a Spanish production and apparently aims to teach you as you would have learned your native language, the first half is passive which means reading and repeating. By lesson 3 I was already learning such useful phrases as:
¿Usted fumar? – Do you smoke?
¿Quiere un cigarro? – Do you want a cigarette?
El tabaco rubio, en España, es caro – The light tobacco, in Spain, is expensive
El tabaco negro cuesta mucho menos – The black tobacco costs much less
Tiene usted razón – You are right
I am already feeling I could walk into any bar in town and start a conversation, as surely you look like a real local if you can complain about prices in the local language. I think perhaps though, I will save such questioning to when accompanied, not least because I don’t actually smoke and I suppose such conversation maybe misconstrued.
After a light lunch of pasta and pesto, followed by more reading we headed off to find an internet café to give my sister a call from one of the telephone booths whilst Kevin did internet browsing. Next we head to the town beach about 3pm, after the heat of the day had abated. The whole town seems to congregate on the beach and there is a real sense of community with everyone chatting and the children all playing together. The sand is a darker colour having a high percentage of black volcanic sand in it, which makes it really hot to walk on by the afternoon I discovered. Kevin continued with his stories of naval battles, whilst I headed out for a swim. The water is really warm along the beach and there were lots of families and children enjoying cooling off in the water. The sand is fine and sticks to you quite well especially when wet, which gives the impression of being covered in mud from a distance and so you regularly see kids running round looking absolutely filthy clearly really enjoying themselves.



When we’d had enough sun we had a cooling couple of beers on the seafront before heading back to the boat. I was on galley duty and prepared Spaghetti Bolognese (made with Beanfeast quorn mince – a must for boat stocks as it keeps forever), then “Flan” a local dish you see in every restaurant which taste a bit like crème brulee one of Kevin’s favourites (which we have discovered comes in packet mix form). We ate on the cockpit table (outside) as the wind was light this evening with a glass or two of a Don Simon red (from a carton obviously), it’s very quiet and peaceful at the marina at the moment as there are very few people around as it’s still fairly early in the season for the Canaries.



We finished off the evening with a new game from our Chambers Card Games book which I got free from a book club. Last night was Gin Rummy, which was quite fiercely competitive and went on until about 1am, with a very comfortable victory for Kevin. We heard again lots of car horns and cheering later on in the evening, so assume another football win for Spain?