A week in sunny Tenerife

Just back from a week in Tenerife with Sam, Lucy, Arthur and Saoirse. We stayed at the GF Victoria in Adeje and it was great weather – up in the high 20s and lots of sun.

We went to Adeje around this time last year and stayed at the Roca Nivaria. This year’s hotel, another five-star inclusive package, was better for Arthur as the swimming pools were more child-friendly and there were lots of them.

It’s great to have a sunny, warm week in winter. While we were away last year, we had a really chilly February with a bitter storm dubbed ‘The Beast from the East’ but February 2019 has been unseasonably warm with record temperatures recorded and lots of sun. There were bumble bees and butterflies in our garden in mid Feb and all the spring bulbs are well advanced.

I could have got a sun tan working at the allotment, but you never know these things when you book.

Holidays are quite expensive and here’s (roughly) what this one cost.

Hotel - £2,500
Drinks and extras - £350
Flights - £350
Hotel at Gatwick - £100
Parking - £50
Dog boarding kennels - £120
Taxi transfers - £50

It’s around £3,500, so not one of those holidays where it’s cheaper to live in Spain than it is in the UK. We also had Jason Robinson in to paint the stairs while we were away, so that was an extra £470 – my poor old bank balance!

In the Sky Bar before the grandchildren arrived.

The Victoria is really nice. The room was great – we were on the fifth floor – and there are glass lifts at various points. We had a balcony with views of the family and adults’ pools, also an Atlantic sunset, there was a lounge, separate bedroom, en-suite bathroom and additional shower/loo. Two TVs, tea and coffee, fridge, safe and lots of wardrobe space.

The hotel is modern and quite stylish, with two bars, two restaurants and lots of sports/play facilities.

We were supposed to arrive all together on the Saturday, but Sam’s holiday package went wrong when the airline taking them to Tenerife from Jersey went bust. There have been several small airlines bankrupted as we head towards Brexit. It’s probably not all Brexit’s fault, but it is a major contributing factor.

It meant that instead of getting there on Saturday, his holiday was now Monday to Monday and so we missed two days with the grandchildren.

We spent Saturday looking around the hotel (that took a while) and popping into the nearby shopping centre to buy a hat. I’d left my Panama at home (you always forget something). There’s a nice open-air bar on Planta Cinco where it says you can watch the sunset over the Atlantic. You can, but another pretty hotel with a little bell tower blocks the view of the orb disappearing into the water.

The hotel was very quiet – there were only four people in the bar and definitely no need to worry about finding a vacant sun-lounger. Breakfast and dinner were in the price (not lunch and not wine). We took meals in the restaurant on the ground floor, which was a help-yourself feast (if you wanted it to be). I had fillet steak three nights (cooked to order), pork steak another night and once I went Italian and had risotto followed by pizza. There was a choice of sweets (a little on the sickly side) and a good selection of cheese. Breakfasts (for me) were porridge or rice pudding, followed by fruit, nuts and yoghurt. I had scrambled eggs and toast on a couple of days.

There was entertainment in the ground-floor bar each night from 6am to 9pm. We saw a decent singer and a violinist; a mediocre rock band playing covers and a useless pianist. We quite enjoyed the acrobat troupe.

Chatting to artists and people in the bar, it’s amazing what a small word we have become. A singer was from the Czech Republic and she spoke English, Spanish and Russian (at least), the violinist was Hungarian and he’d lived in Ireland and Spain (where he’d met his Argentinian wife) before moving to the Canaries; waiting staff were from Morocco and Venezuela (among others) and guests were from UK, Austria, Russia and Scandinavia (among others). It’s such a shame that the EU’s freedom of movement, which can allow a Czech singer to work in the Canaries, is being lost. As the world gets smaller and more open, Little England is pulling up the drawbridge and saying “we don’t want to be part of this.”

Arthur had enjoyed the open-air play pool on the Fifth Floor. It was paddling-pool shallow and had lots of fun slides for toddlers. He’d been on all the toddler slides on Tuesday and also in the big family pool on the Second Floor level in the afternoon.

It was really encouraging because he was quite nervous about water last year. I bought him a bucket and water squirter and Sam got him some Paw Patrol arm-bands, so we thought he’d be well set for the week. However, on Wednesday, he didn’t want to go in the water and wasn’t interested in the slides. He was coaxed in, but wouldn’t do more than paddle or play with his bucket and squirter. Saoirse was taken for a dip and tolerated the wet, but was not really up for it. She seemed quite shocked and puzzled by the experience.

On Friday, Sam and I (in an effort to encourage Arthur) went on the two big water slides in the deep part of the fun pool. One was rather nice, but the other was a high, closed tube that turned you over like a bobsleigh and gave my sinuses a jet-wash when I plunged into the water. Arthur wasn’t inspired by our heroics.

Our trip home was good. We left the hotel at 9.30am, Tenerife South airport was busy, but our flight was on time and we landed at Gatwick around 4.45pm. We got through passport, baggage and customs pretty quickly and were lucky to find a car-park bus waiting at the stop.

Head-to-head with grandma.

The roads were really quiet and we were at Friar Tuck’s in Whittlesey at 7.50pm for two Senior Meal Deals.

Jason has done a nice job on the stairs and Holly was delighted to see me on Sunday morning. I think a spell in kennels does her good, it makes her appreciate what a cushy life she has!

After-dinner cocktails (and rum)

Jason has done a nice job on the stairs.

Three months - three holidays

Mt Tiede, Tenerife's volcano, from the
EasyJet window.

This is a first for me. I've never had a week's holiday in the sun during the middle of winter, normally I'm heading somewhere colder for skiing.

The holiday was Sam's idea, he arranged it and asked if we wanted to come along. Tenerife was chosen because you can fly directly from Jersey. We had an early flight from Gatwick (bag drop 6am), so we stayed overnight at the airport to avoid a miserable 3am start.

Tenerife is a popular winter destination for we Brits. I didn’t realise how popular until I mentioned I was going on holiday there. So many people seem to own property in the Canaries, or have mates who let them use properties or go there every year for a break from the gloomy British winter.

I was particularly looking forward to going to a Spanish-speaking destination, so I could practise my language skills and (perhaps) even show off. As it turned out I didn’t get much further than hello, good morning, please and thank you; although I did ask for a spoon once. The only place where I could have let rip, the waitress had gone to university in Cardiff and relished the chance to practise her English!

We stayed at the Roca Nivaria, part of the Adrian Hoteles group, at Costa Adeje. We didn’t book all-inclusive as we expected to get out and about a little (perhaps to the top of Mount Teide, the volcano that dominates the island). As it happened, we found everything we needed inside the hotel, so we emerged only to buy water, snacks for Arthur, wine and beach stuff. We  also found a small play area, which Arthur liked, Margaret and I went to a restaurant one evening and we had a short walk around the coast promenade. That was it.

The hotel has restaurants, pools, sports and games areas, shops, nursery, soft play, gardens, walks, putting green and a lift down to the beach. It was a bit like an upmarket Butlin’s (very upmarket, but the principle was the same).

Arthur tucking into breakfast

Food was great, staff were nice, decor was lovely, and the weather was pleasant (up in the low 20s). It was good to be able to spend some time with Arthur. He recognised Margaret straight away at the airport, which she was rightly pleased about. I was also to form more of a bond with him, which was great. Because of distance, Arthur knows us a lot less than Julia or Aureliano and so it’s good to have some quality time with him.

We’d taken some books along and Arthur had a new book each day. He loved Bear Hunt. Our routine soon settled into a pattern:

1.     Breakfast would be taken in turn so that Sam and Lucy got Arthur some food, then we went up for ours (help-yourself buffet). Arthur would soon be full or fed up and so I’d take him for a walk around the gardens and pools for 20 minutes or so while the others ate. There was a fish pond with some large fish and terrapins. That was out first port of call, then there was a wall to balance on, a cave bar/restaurant (that may have contained a bear) and a waterfall that you could walk behind. Back at the restaurant, Sam, Lucy and Margaret would be on the cava and their third coffee; so I’d tag Margaret to take Arthur to the soft-play area and I’d grab some cake, cava and coffee myself. Soft play was a life-saver!

2.    We’d then do the pool or football. Arthur doesn’t really like swimming pools, he isn’t confident, or particularly happy, in the water, but he does love football, throwing things and chasing around. There was a big five-a-side pitch, basketball court, volleyball court and giant chess and draughts games. We bought a ball and Arthur was in his element.

3.    He would normally have a sleep late morning or early afternoon, generally with Sam or Lucy, then we’d have time for pool or more play afterwards. We tended to snack for lunch and then have dinner quite early. Dinner would be similar to breakfast, with us working in relays to amuse Arthur and keep him provisioned. He does have a good arm for throwing and will hurl food, cutlery or crockery once he’s done with it. You have to watch him closely and soft play was again a facility that was very much appreciated.

I tried to teach Arthur buenos días, hola and gracias, but only ‘hola’ stuck and he shouted it loudly to staff and fellow guests, which was very cute.

Playing in the sand at the Volleyball court.

Tenerife was the second of three holidays I was taking in the first three months of the year – quite an impressive record. With grandparent duties for Aureliano and Julia, allotment and Thorney Post, it was a very busy start to the year.

My first holiday was skiing with Sam in January. We got a very cheap late deal at La Rosiere and ended up in a catered chalet with four firemen, a dad and his two sons, a couple from Worcester and a couple from Essex. It wasn’t a bad mix and our chalet host (a public schoolboy called Josh) was aimiable, if a little disorganised.

We went with Ski Beat for the second year running and it’s a flight to Lyon, then a pretty long coach transfer to the resort. Sam and I both stayed over in Gatwick the night before our outbound flight and so the early start was quite tolerable.

Very snowy - La Rosiere

There had been huge snowfalls in the Alps and we had more snow during our stay. Some resorts had closed due to avalanche threat and at La Rosiere, the link to Italy wasn’t open until the last day. I really enjoyed the skiing. I managed to persuade our resort rep to sell me an over-65 ski pass, which saved some cash, and then signed up for four days with the ski school. I had nice instructors and small groups and I was twice promoted to higher levels, which was good for my confidence.

One of the ski instructors lived in the village and worked as a golf pro and carpenter during the summer. I asked him whether he was busy and had classes in the afternoon and he said he was going to spend the rest of the day clearing snow from his chalet roof. All the roofs had a good three or four feet of snow on the top and I asked if they were designed to cope with that weight. He said this year was particularly thick and said he knew he had to move some snow off when they couldn’t open the windows upstairs. The weight of the snow bends the window lintels downwards and you can’t open them. He also showed us the golf clubhouse up on the slopes at La Rosiere. There’s a nine-hole golf course in the summer, but now the top of the roof of the clubhouse was just visible. That’s quite a thickness of snow.

On the last day, Sam and I skied across into Italy, which involves a couple of reds and two long drag lifts and I managed to survive all that. Quite a contrast to the year before at St Martin de Belleville, when I’d crashed hard a couple of times and was pretty sore by the end of the week. The end of my left thumb is still numb – nerve damage from one of the falls.

First job: buy a sledge!

My third holiday, a second ski holiday, was in March and this time we went to Arc 1950 with Sam, Lucy and Arthur. We had decided to drive, even though I was a little worried about whether the BMW (220,000 miles) would make it there and back. Sam was flying and we said we’d pick them up on Sunday morning from Chambery. It was a bit of a squeeze, but we managed it. Margaret was pleased to see Arthur and even sat in the back without complaining.

Sam and I had gone to Arc 1950 last year, and we thought it would be good for a family holiday. The car park (a massive underground construction) took some working out, but the BMW had performed effortlessly and we managed to unpack and get in our accommodation by late afternoon. I’d got a dozen bottles of wine stashed over the wheel well, plus gin and sherry, so we were well provisioned for booze. We’d also bought essentials from home and there was a Huit a 8 in the resort.

Like La Rosiere, there was plenty of snow and it snowed several times during the week. I was back on my old red skis and boots. My boots were hurting (surely my feet haven’t grown) and the skis were dragging. I got the skis waxed and hired some boots for the rest of the week.

Arthur got a sledge on the first day and enjoyed being dragged around the village in the snow. It must be a massive culture shock for a toddler to swap his regular St Helier nursery for mountains, cold and deep snow.

I am very familiar with Les Arcs resorts and it was good to be back on those slopes. Sam and Lucy tried to trick me by taking me back onto Renard. They thought if they brought me in a different way and didn’t say anything that I wouldn’t know where I was. There’s no forgetting Renard for me, I knew exactly where I was, but went along with the ruse. It was OK actually. It is a tough blue, but I’ve done worse.

They were waiting at the bottom cackling like a couple of old crones.

Skiing was good most days, but there was quite a lot of snow during the week and on a couple of days visibility was pretty poor. I struggle a bit when I can’t see the contour of the slope. I find myself speeding up when I expect to slow down. Sam says I need to relax and feel the slope. I think I might feel the slope with my bum.

On the final day, we all went out in the morning, but the visibility was so poor I packed it in on the first run and turned for home.

Apart from revisiting Renard, I did the Mont Blanc run, which I’ve not done for a couple of years. That’s probably a tougher blue than Renard, but the toughest blue of all is the last run in to Arc 1600. I always managed to fall on that and although I managed it OK several times, it did catch me out once.