Sign here

An enthusiastic knocking on the front door rouses him from a Friday afternoon siesta. He staggers to the door, still half asleep, heart already sinking. He knows who this is.

Opening the door, he is greeted by a young and smiling postwoman. A knock at the door on a Friday afternoon is nearly always a postal delivery, which can be good news of course - a parcel, the new toy he ordered a couple of weeks ago! - but is much more likely to be a carta certificada. A registered letter. These are always bad news.

The postie points to his name on the registered letter, which is correct although the address is a version long superseded, dating back to when the village was smaller and nobody really needed an address because everyone knew where everyone lived. She hands him the letter, keys his Spanish identification number into her mobile device as he dictates it, then gets him to sign the tiny screen.

There is a special stylus for doing this but he has never met a post person who hasn't already lost theirs, so he signs with a fingertip, producing an unidentifiable squiggle. That's okay because the Spanish always sign with an unidentifiable squiggle anyway.

The carta certificada turns out to be entirely typical of its species. Somewhere among several pages of dense legalese he discovers an accusation that he owes San Sebastián's Ayuntamiento, the town council, the sum of 60.79 euros. The claim seems to be that around three years ago he missed a payment for the basura, the domestic rubbish collection service.

His wife tries to get hold of the documents as he stomps around the room waving them in the air and complaining loudly. What nonsense! All their council-supplied services are paid automatically from the bank account, and always have been. Adding fuel to his indignation is that the sum includes - 'Look at this!' he rants - a 10% fine for late payment.

That night, during a wakeful session at four in the morning, he mulls over the demand again and slowly, reluctantly, realises that perhaps it might be justified. The alleged missing payment was around the date when they moved their bank account from a global superbank to a much smaller local one. Changing your bank is made easy by law, the new bank simply takes over your routine payments in and out. But between closing the old account and activating the new one there could have been a short hiatus where, if the Ayuntamiento solicited a payment just at that moment, it might have fallen through the gap.

Later that morning he checks his records. This is the kind of occasion, he justifies to his wife, defensively, when it's useful that he keeps records of everything on the computer. Unfortunately his records leave no doubt.

'Three years ago!' he storms, still trying to be angry. 'Why didn't they notice it at the time?'

Secretly though, one part of his brain, the more rational set of neurons, is quite impressed. Someone or something has been rummaging through the council's accounts for the past four years (the fiscal watershed) in search of remnants of lost income. He noticed that the postwoman was holding not just his registered letter but several others in the same kind of envelope.

The rest of his neurons switch into despair mode. This kind of problem inevitably generates no end of grief and wasted time no matter how you try to deal with it. A friend, trying to achieve a simple transaction involved in the sale of his house, was driven close to madness by the bureaucratic convolutions. A sympathetic official in the council offices, fluent in English, commented simply 'Welcome to Spain'.

Anyway, there is no escaping the need to sort this out. Manos a la obra they decide, let's get on with the job. That same morning they begin their odyssey at the source, the Ayuntamiento building on the town's main square, where the helpful young woman at the reception desk explains that, no, they can't pay there, they have to go to the Agencia Tributaria elsewhere in town. The tax office.

Fine, they know where to find that - you can't live in Spain for long without knowing where to find the tax office. In the Agencia Tributaria he shows the letter to the security guard, who also acts as a friendly guide for bureaucratically bewildered visitors. As he launches into an explanation of the problem the security man holds up a hand: stop! This is not the place they need to be. There is a different Agencia Tributaria office that deals with unpaid basura fees. He describes where it is, just around the corner. This is a mercifully compact town.

They find the office without difficulty, a small doorway next to a cafe. At the service desk, protected by a glass screen from covid-19 and irate citizens, a cheerful lady listens politely, scans the sheaf of documents and nods understandingly, clearly recognising them. They've come to the right place.

'We accept that we owe the money,' he explains, 'no problem there, but the postal address on the envelope is out of date by several decades and the address on all the documents is even more wrong. We don't live up on the hill above San Sebastián, we live in a village nearby. This is the address of some other person entirely.'

He has visions of paying someone else's basura debt instead of theirs, thereby unleashing a future stream of increasingly threatening demands from which there will be no escape because he is now two different people. 'We're two different people,' he emphasises, but the assistant seems unfazed. There is a form for this situation. There's a form for everything. She pushes a Change of Address form across the counter.

'But we haven't changed our address. We've lived in the same house for ever, and this address isn't it! The bank is going to be confused if…'

He pauses then gives up, realising that he's wasting his breath. There is only one form for putting an address to rights, the assistant tells him, and this is it. 'Sign here.'

He signs. She makes a photocopy, stamps it, signs it with an unidentifiable Spanish squiggle and passes it across the counter along with another form to take to the bank.

In their bank, two of the attendants are already occupied but the ridiculously young branch manager waves them over to his desk. There is absolutely no problem about making the payment, he assures them, no problem about the address being incorrect, no problem about anything.

All over in moments. Our hero wishes the manager a happy Carnaval because that's coming up the following week and the manager laughs as he ushers them to the door.

Over a restorative coffee they retrace the stages of their journey. There is a kind of glow around them now, an aura of success achieved in the face of difficulties. Reviewed objectively it has been almost - is this possible? - almost enjoyable. Nobody got angry or dismissive - stupid foreigners! - or imposed impossible hoops and hurdles. On the contrary, everyone was smilingly helpful and understanding. But then, they've been living with Spanish burocracia all their lives, unless they're from Cuba or Venezuela where it's even worse.

-------------- NOTES --------------

Thinking about this incident called to mind that doom-laden quotation, The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. There are various versions and they all make me shiver.

However, full marks to our Ayuntamiento for discovering this discrepancy in their finances, even if it took a while to get there.

Not too many marks for the impenetrable documentation that accompanied the demand, but that's normal throughout Spain's administrative functions. It used to be the same in Britain before the highly successful Plain English Campaign transformed things, but I'm not aware of anything similar here, a Campaña por el Español Sencillo.

Dense legalistic language is of a piece with the bureaucratic processes involved in anything official. I'm not playing the whingeing foreigner here, Spanish people themselves are entirely aware of how bad it is. There's a hilarious video on YouTube called Funcionario Público, Civil Servant:

https://youtu.be/NmXCmmjJQ_c (or just search for the title)

But credit where it's due: Spain, along with most of Europe, has a remarkably simple system for identifying its citizens. You have a number, and that's it. For Spanish citizens it's referred to as the DNI (Documento Nacional de Identidad) or, specifically for financial stuff, the NIF (Número de Identidad Fiscal), but the number is the same. There's only one version of you.

Foreign residents get a similar number, the NIE (Número de Identificación Extranjero). This is extraordinarily useful. You can apply for a card bearing your NIE along with your photo and signature and it serves to confirm your identity for just about anything you need to do in everyday life, from buying a new pair of shoes with a credit card to catching a ferry, where the card serves as a ticket.

There is nothing of the police state about this card, you are not obliged to carry it, but everyone keeps it in their purse or wallet anyway because it's so handy.

Cats and dogs

They caught her in the very act. One foot on the pavement, the other still swinging over the lowest part of the fence as she was making her escape.

Unfortunately they weren't our local police, who perhaps might have been more understanding, but two from a team of Spanish national police who had been stationed here to help enforce the rules. We were all grateful for this - except for Helga, the fence climber - because the covid-19 pandemic was something new and frightening in our lives.

The long weeks of home confinement were over by that time but severe restrictions remained, especially in relation to social gatherings, so San Sebastián's central park was out of bounds, its gates closed and locked. We met Helga shortly after the police released her that morning. She was understandably shaky, not having been nabbed by the police before, and angry because they had issued her with an on-the-spot fine for contravening the pandemic regulations. Three hundred euros was devastating for someone who doesn't have much spare cash. And if she didn't pay up within two weeks it would double.

So why did she do it? Why climb into the forbidden park over the fence? She had tried to explain to the police officers but her limited Spanish didn't prove sufficiently persuasive. 'La ley es la ley, señora', the law is the law. Well yes, but… what she was doing was to return a feral cat to its usual home in the park. Helga is a volunteer supporter of a group called ProAnimal Gomera that, among other activities, captures stray cats and takes them to a helpful vet to be neutered. It's a gentler approach to population control than culling and, from the cats' point of view, not ideal but probably the solution they'd prefer if given a choice.

Cats have always been a problem if you choose to look at it that way. It's really more of a problem for the cats than for us because they live their own lives quietly (except at night) in the park or on the rocks by the sea, but the benefactors who supply them with food tend to come and go unreliably. One elderly couple used to feed them daily with nothing but the best, visiting the supermarket to buy premium fish which they dispensed on silver platters with a choice of sauces, fresh bread and finger bowls.

They also fed the pigeons, scattering corn for the squabbling hordes that gathered twice a day at the appointed times (how do pigeons do that?). That all came to a sad end when the couple passed away. Other kind souls now fill the gap to some extent but much less dependably, sometimes being away, sometimes overlapping with each other so the cats get fed several meals simultaneously. The pigeons do better because there are always plenty of tidbits blowing around the cafe tables.

And what about the dogs? Are there no feral dogs as well? Yes there are, but far fewer and very seldom in town. There is an official dog-catcher service but in practice, any stray dog foolish enough to turn up in San Sebastián is likely to get caught by a local lady who used to worry about cats but now specialises in dogs. She takes them home and walks them daily in groups of five or six at a time, whether they want to or not. This also serves to discourage local dog owners from allowing their pooch to roam around on its own (which is illegal) because it risks finding itself collared, roped and trotting among the herd twice a day.

You couldn't do that with cats, could you? They'd tear each other to pieces along with their captor. It's probably significant - standing back for a moment to view life philosophically - that although there are now many more dogs than cats in La Gomera, they are nearly all owned and living in a cosy home with the rest of the family. It's the cats who choose to run wild, free and aloof. Which you either find admirable or not, a known way of dividing the human species into two distinct camps.

-------------- NOTES --------------

As always, the arrow of time flies onwards and things change. The ProAnimal Gomera group, although they operate throughout the island, now have a permanent base on the outskirts of San Sebastián where stray animals can be cared for and, if they're lucky, assigned to a new home.

This has made our local dog-snatcher lady increasingly redundant and she is currently reduced to a single ageing mongrel with arthritis. They seem happy together and he has the benefit of not being in competition with any of the other riff-raff.

There are also a decreasing number of cats wandering around because as the older ones pass into their peaceful eternity they now leave no kittens to carry on the struggle.

Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned kittens, that invites the involuntary 'Aaah, what a shame…'

Contact details for ProAnimal Gomera

Post

ProAnimal Gomera, Calle de Las Tomateras, s/n

Antigua Escuela Taller

San Sebastián de La Gomera, 38800

Web

https://www.proanimalgomera.com

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/proanimalgomera

Email

proanimalgomera@gmail.com

Phone

+34 621 273 777

The French yacht

This story dates back to earlier times in La Gomera. It was brought to mind by… Well, let's tell the story first.

------------------------------

During a brief pause, I turned to the beefy young local in swim shorts behind me. 'Why exactly are we pulling this?'

He shrugged, grinning. Pulling on a long rope that stretches from the beach into the sea is fun. There was resistance but nothing obvious out there to cause it.

'Vale, vamos!' – Right, let's go! A young man with blonde curly hair and an accent definitely not Spanish conveyed a reassuring sense of purpose. He was standing to one side rather than pulling on the rope, a sure sign of leadership. We began to heave again, about a dozen of us working more-or-less in unison.

Higher up the beach behind us a sailing yacht sat forlornly propped on piles of old rubber tyres, leaning sideways as though recalling southerly wind in better days. Something like 10 metres in length, it was the kind of craft in which intrepid pensioners sail single-handed around the globe or weekenders take the kids for a spin off the Isle of Wight.

It belonged, I already knew, to two young French lads, one of whom was the curly-haired overseer of the rope team. His name was Michel. His friend Jean-Paul was smaller, darker and more typically Gallic, with a narrow nose and a wry grin. We first encountered them a few days earlier walking around their stranded yacht like two toddlers wondering what was wrong with Mum.

'Qué pasó?', what happened, we asked them with Gomeran directness.

Michel responded in English. They had sailed into San Sebastián harbour the previous evening and moored to a buoy in the harbour. After rowing ashore in their dinghy to buy provisions and have supper, they returned to their boat and eventually went to bed.

'It was very windy last night, you know?' Michel said. Yes, we'd heard it. Winds can get very gusty in the complex weather systems that drift here from across the Atlantic. Michel had woken in the early morning sensing unexpected movement, poked his head outside and found they were being blown towards the beach, towing the mooring buoy behind them. It had come loose from the sea bed.

'We only had a couple of minutes to do anything. I tried to start the engine but the battery was flat.'

'It's buggered,' contributed Jean-Paul helpfully.

They had borrowed the yacht from Michel's father, who should have been here on the beach to see what happens when you let two young men sail unsupervised from Sète and head off into adventure. Jean-Paul was on a rest break from his day job as a waiter and night job as the drummer in a rock band. I'm not sure what Michel's job was, but I suspect it was more of an occupation than a job. They were on a let's-see-what-happens holiday, they told us. On their way to the Canaries they had called into a port somewhere on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. Hmm.

The boat was damaged by its unintended encounter with the beach but not too seriously. Its traditional timber hull had sprung a plank but they had now managed to bang it back into place and squeeze in enough filler to keep out the sea, they hoped, while they sailed around the south coast of La Gomera to the port of Santiago, where there was a boatyard with a crane and experts to effect a more reliable repair.

First, however, they had to get the thing back into the sea. Which is why we were all pulling on this rope. Within a few minutes the objective was revealed: our rope was attached to a thicker and tougher one which we now hauled onto the sand. A hawser, the kind of rope they use for mooring ferries to wharfside bollards.

At the far end of this hawser, out in the bay, was an ugly but utilitarian vessel that transported people and equipment to a settlement of dubious repute (in those days) just around the coast.

The two French lads, with their support team of rope pullers and an increasing number of others, attached the hawser to a cat's cradle of ropes wrapped around the hull of their boat and, in due course, the sturdy vessel in the bay tugged it down the beach and into the waves. It floated, bobbing apparently happily, while the boys rowed out to it in their dinghy and climbed aboard.

We met them again a couple of days later, arriving back on the beach in the dinghy. The yacht was moored out in the bay, still healthily upright.

'How did it go? Boat repaired?'

'No,' Michel said. 'They didn't really want to know about it.'

'Didn't want to lift your boat out of the water?'

'Well, no…' Michel said, oddly reticent. 'I think they didn't like us very much.'

'Questions, questions…' amplified Jean-Paul.

'And they wanted the money first, before they'd do anything.'

'Huge amount,' said Jean-Paul. 'Ridiculous. We haven't got that much! Not in cash. We'd have had to…'

He paused. His friend Michel had placed a foot heavily on his toes.

They left the following day, heading back to France with fingers crossed that the deviant plank wouldn't ping out of place again. We know they made it because they arrived back in San Sebastián two years later in the same craft and - incredible this, but true - once again managed to get it shipwrecked on the same beach, in much the same way.

Whatever it was that brought them here, it wasn't just a holiday and, even more surely, they weren't very good at it.

-------------- NOTES --------------

Visiting yachts no longer moor in the open bay, San Sebastián now has a sheltered marina with its own crane and facilities. The photo above is from the era of this story.

The coastal settlement of dubious repute I mentioned has transformed itself into a highly respectable (and expensive) retreat for clients seeking tranquility, healthy food, restorative massages and optional trips to town on a sleek motor launch.

Two recent events brought this memory back to the surface. One was the arrival of a large number of visitors, mostly young and fit, who had committed to setting off from La Gomera to row across the Atlantic to Antigua. Like Columbus, but without the sails, they faced a journey of around 3,000 miles. Since 2003 this has been an annual fixture in which somewhere around 30 boats take part with crews from one to five rowers. They're not just ordinary rowing boats, of course, but chunky little vessels with small cabins and helpful electronics. So far they've proved unsinkable, which is comforting for the mums and dads fearfully following their mad offspring.

The other event, reported in the local newsletters, was the interception by the marine Guardia Civil of a motor vessel heading past the Canary Islands. A smart, modern semi-rigid craft, it had a cabin in which the police found two men and 2,500 kilos of cocaine. It was packaged in 86 bundles which the guys hadn't even bothered to try and conceal, probably intending to transfer them at sea to smaller boats for delivery to European ports. There is a well known 'Atlantic Route' for the transport of drugs from the Americas and the Caribbean. However, as far as I'm aware La Gomera plays no active role in that, and our two young seafarers were certainly not part of any large-scale organisation.

The holiday bridge

Next door a skilled team is transforming the house - one of the oldest in the village - into something that will undoubtedly be wonderful, but at the moment is a centre of banging, drilling, dust and pop music. No complaints, we're very glad someone will be moving in soon, an empty house is a sad one.

One of the workers is more chatty than the others, more willing to engage, although he always has an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips which doesn't help my understanding of his Gomeran Spanish.

'You're working today?' I asked him. 'But it's Saturday, and the romería!'

He chuckled, wobbling the cigarette, and said something I very nearly got.

'Only until midday?'

'Mas o menos,' he agreed - more or less. A little more, his hands indicated. Then he'd be off, he said, smacking his palms together like clashing symbols, a gesture meaning 'that's it, done, finished'.

He did it with great verve, with notable glee, the significance of which I didn't appreciate at the time. It was normal practice for the guys to stop a little early on Saturday then take Sunday off but this particular Saturday was a very special one with a huge, enormously important street procession, the romería in honour of the Virgen de Guadalupe, the island's patron. The town would fill with singers, drummers, strummers and dancers not only from San Sebastián but from all over the island and from several of the other islands too.

'And you'll have Monday off as well,' I suggested. 'For the bajada.'

He nodded, grinning cheerfully. 'Sí, sí, la bajada.'

The bajada is an even bigger event than the romería and rarer than the Olympics, taking place only every fifth year. It means literally 'the descent' but refers to the landing of the Virgen de Guadalupe on the main beach of San Sebastián, having been transported here by fishing boat from her home in a small chapel just along the coast. The Virgen is a representation of the Virgin Mary, a small effigy carved in wood but with a local importance way beyond her size. Her arrival on the town beach unleashes floods of emotion for true Gomerans as well as lots of money for the local cafes.

The day of the bajada is always a Monday and, of course, a holiday. In practice one day is not enough - the celebrations extend to breakfast time the next morning with an all-night dance - so on these special five-yearly occasions Tuesday is also a holiday. It's not quite official but it happens, with schools closing along with most of the shops - kind of unofficially official.

Even more unofficial was something else that happened this particular year. As the dates worked out, the following Thursday was an annual national holiday, the Día de La Hispanidad. Which meant that - but wait, first we've got to invoke a brilliant feature of the Spanish way of life and leisure called el puente, the bridge. If, for example, a holiday falls on a Tuesday, it's unofficially accepted that going back to work after the weekend for just a day, before another day off, is hardly worth the bother so Monday is labelled un puente and becomes a de facto holiday as well, creating a long weekend. These can also be triggered at the end of the week by a holiday on Thursday, turning Friday into a puente.

Following this principle, if everyone was going to be off work on Monday and Tuesday because of the bajada, it was hardly worth starting again for just a day before the national holiday on Thursday, so Wednesday became an unofficial holiday as well. Friday was already labelled a puente, so the end result was that everyone took the whole week off.

The workers next door, others on municipal roadworks and various worksites nearby, even the schools and colleges joined in this agreeable subterfuge, although the latter pretended it was because of an unusually prolonged heatwave.

And thus, the explanation for our next-door workman's hearty sign-off on the previous Saturday. He knew. I can't fault this as an attitude. It's not that people get nothing done: Gomeran workers start early and go at it hard all day, but if there's an opportunity for a break and enjoyment they grab it with both hands. When it comes to establishing a healthy work-life balance, I think they're well ahead of the game.

-------------- NOTES --------------

Multiple puentes such as this recent one are a recognised Spanish phenomenon called the acueducto (aqueduct) or macropuente. They are frowned upon by economists and right-wing politicians but not so much by everyone else.

It seems that the French also follow the admirable tradition of holiday bridges, les ponts. I can't see it taking hold in Britain, and anyway there's little opportunity as most of the bank holidays are on Monday or Friday - no doubt deliberately. A spoilsport former Spanish president, Mariano Rajoy, in 2012 tried to do that to Spain, proposing that all national holidays should be on Monday or Friday. Fortunately he failed because many of them are religious celebrations and the Catholic church wasn't going to have those messed about with.

The Virgen de Guadalupe five-year festivities are called the Fiestas Lustrales which is another way of saying five-yearly. The Lustrales featured in two earlier stories: A moment of madness, 18 April 2018 and The little dark one, 10 January 2019.

Sugar and spice

 José was already fishing in the fridge for a bottle of beer as I approached the counter. A man of few words, he pushed it towards me together with a glass, took my five-euro note and headed for the till.

Right next to me, in a glass display cabinet on the counter, something was trying to catch my eye. Among the usual late-afternoon remainders - a couple of those little sponges called madalenas, a croissant, a cream bun - was one I'd never seen in there before.

José came back with my change, nodded affably and turned away. I hesitated heroically.

I'm not usually tempted by sweet stuff. Long ago, after a few miserable years as an overweight teenager, I weaned myself off sugar. Cakes, meringues, Death by Chocolate puddings, After Eight mints could no longer touch me. Chocolate digestives hung on for a while but finally I banished them too.

Which is just as well because there is a lot of temptation in La Gomera. Your typical Gomeran has a very sweet tooth. There are four specialist cake shops in San Sebastián alone. They all sell bread as well but mainly they sell cakes, tarts, pastries and biscuits. The supermarkets sell sweet biscuits in family size bags and so do several of the bars and cafes.

José doesn't do bags of biscuits but he does have a selection of cakes and buns. He also offers Kit-Kats, Mars bars and suchlike, as does any other cafe, but the crucial difference is that José's cafe is in the hospital.

I had recently become a regular afternoon customer because of Janine's broken arm (reported in a previous post, Life and limb, 6 May 2023). Once the arm had glued itself together she needed twice-weekly rehabilitation sessions, which I wasn't allowed to watch, the rehab gimnasio being strictly for patients.

The obvious solution was to head for the cafeteria. While a therapist in white overalls was bending my wife's arm in unwelcome directions I could provide moral support a very short distance away over a glass of cold beer. This is what marriage is all about, we try to share the load.

During one of these afternoon sessions, sipping my beer, I got to thinking deep thoughts. The beer was a bog-standard Pilsen because that's all José is allowed to sell. My normal preference would be for one of the special beers - longer matured, fuller flavour - but they are also a little higher in alcohol and the Spanish health service is very sniffy about alcohol. It's tolerated but reluctantly, we're allowed a few per cent by volume but no more. You can't have wine in this cafe at all, not even if you're ordering a burger and chips or a fried egg sandwich.

If alcohol is viewed with disapproval, I thought, should sugary snacks be so freely permitted? Even the humble madalena cupcake is very sweet while all those candy bars are little more than flavoured sucrose. Sugar is bad, isn't it? Obesity, diabetes, blood pressure, rotting teeth…

And how about that other display cabinet full of colourful packets of crisps and other fried munchies laced with oil, salt and those tasty, toasty acrylamides? Junk food designed to be irresistible.

All of which accounts for the internal battle I was fighting that particular afternoon, standing at the counter with my beer bottle and glass, trying to be resolute. I crumbled.

'José. I'm going to have that doughnut.'

José ambled back, picked up the cake tongs and extracted the doughnut.

'I can't resist them,' I told him guiltily.

José nodded understandingly. 'They're very good, these doughnuts.' Placing it on a plate with a paper serviette, he slid it across the counter. 'Buen provecho,' enjoy it.

He didn't realise what he'd just done. I crept over to a corner table with my doughnut, seeking shelter. What was it about these damned things? Locally made, ring-shaped in the proper manner, they are fluffy in texture, fried only lightly, not over-sweet and with a hint of citrous flavour. They tap into something profound, the lingering remnant of the biological urge.

On the following session, as José pushed my standard Pilsen beer across the counter, he indicated the display cabinet apologetically. 'The doughnuts have all gone.'

'That's just as well,' I assured him. 'I'm better without doughnuts.' He shrugged doubtfully - why would anyone be better without doughnuts?

A few minutes later he came over to my table with a slice of Spanish tortilla, a piece of bread and a little bottle of salsa picante, spicy chilli sauce. Deeply touched, I thanked him, not too profusely because the Spanish get uncomfortable if you do that - just accept the gift - but what particularly affected me was that little bottle of chilli sauce. I can't really explain why, but I guess it's because it made the gesture more special, like adding a ribbon to a parcel.

And - no argument here - a slice of tortilla is surely a much healthier snack than a doughnut. The beer, I think I'll simply leave out of this debate.

-------------- NOTES --------------

A Spanish tortilla is, of course, not at all the same as the Mexican pancake thing, it's a potato omelette.

As for the doughnuts: Spain has sensibly chosen the American spelling donut because the English version would be unpronounceable in Spanish. Many English words are unpronounceable in Spanish.

Oh, and the acrylamides. Having mentioned them, I had to investigate the latest opinions. Are they carcinogenic? Does eating potato crisps, burnt toast, over-roasted potatoes or the crunchy rim of a pizza significantly increase your risk? The most attractive answer seems to be probably not, because while some studies have claimed to reveal an effect others have failed to find anything at all.

How could they?

Strolling along one of the roads out of town, they come upon a shocking sight.

Doris is shocked, anyway. Her husband Bill isn't quite so affected because it's a warm, sunny morning and he's focused on reaching the cafe-bar he knows is just a little further along the road.

'This is terrible,' wails Doris, reaching into her rucksack for her mobile phone. She takes a photo of the devastation, not for any particular reason, just because she feels that something like this needs recording. An entire row of trees has gone, some twenty or more. She remembers them very clearly from their last walk this way, mature trees providing welcome shade along the pavement.

The sawn stumps still remain, ragged circles of pale wood waiting to be dragged out of the earth by the yellow digger parked further along the road.

Nearer the cafe a shorter row of the same trees is still standing. Doris takes more photos while Bill waits not very patiently in the dappled shadows cast by the last tree, just next to the cafe.

'They're so beautiful,' Doris murmurs, more to herself than to Bill. 'Flame trees.' The name is entirely appropriate because throughout the summer these wonders of nature glow in the sun with brilliant red blossom as though every twig is alight. Doris zooms her mobile phone's camera to capture a close-up of the petals.

Her husband is now standing in the open entrance to the cafe, fanning his face with a sun hat. Doris joins him and they choose a table just inside because it's too hot to sit at the outdoor tables. As Bill downs half a glass of cold beer in one long swallow Doris is still muttering in disbelief: 'How could they?'

She holds up the phone to show Bill her photo of the blossom. He nods. 'Lovely. Good photo.'

Doris needs more than this. As the cafe's proprietor, a plump woman in her fifties, bustles past their table with a broom Doris waves the phone towards her and points at the screen. 'Trees,' she tells the proprietor. 'Beautiful. Gone!' She mimes a tree falling over, with a puzzled expression that means why? in any language.

'Sí, sí, sí,' responds the woman ambiguously, moving on as though not wishing to get involved. A moment later she returns. 'Muy hermosa,' very beautiful, she agrees, 'pero mira!' Look! She points to the cafe floor. It's covered in bright red petals sprinkled like confetti. She sweeps some of them into a little pile then waits for a moment until a gust of wind from the entrance picks them up and spreads them across the floor again. Hands on hips she says 'Ves?' -You see? - then quite a lot more, probably along the general line that these damned trees cause her more work than all the customers put together. Fired up, she pursues the confetti with renewed vigour, corralling it into a corner where she can scoop it into a dustpan.

A minute later she returns, waves her broom accusingly towards the nearest flame tree then points to the floor, saying 'up!' in English. She mimes someone tripping and nearly falling.

'The trees lift the paving,' Bill interprets. 'The roots. She's right, you can see it in the ones still standing. Dangerous.'

The proprietor nods at him, sensing an ally.

'What are they called?' Doris asks the woman, who shakes her head, not understanding. 'Name?' Doris tries. 'Um - nombre?', indicating the tree on her phone.

'Los arboles? Flamboyán,' says the proprietor. 'Flam-boy-án,' she repeats carefully - this is a name to remember! 'Flamboyanes,' she adds helpfully, then sweeps her hand through the air and mimes a row of trees falling over one after the other. Chuckling, she swipes her hands together - job done! - and marches off with her broom and dustpan.

Oh, well. Doris has lost her flame trees but - to stand back objectively for a moment - she and Bill have just encountered one of the great conflicts of urban living, the battle between nature and practicality. We need both.

Fortunately there are still many flame trees in the park and in other places where they won't raise the paving on a busy pedestrian route. The ones being felled here will be replaced by better-behaved species with which we can live in harmony and less risk of broken bones.

-------------- NOTES --------------

This seems to be a problem largely unacknowledged but global in its reach. A few years ago on the other side of the Atlantic, in Colón on the Argentine bank of the River Uruguay, we passed a shopkeeper sweeping petals from the pavement beneath a tall, spreading tree covered in exquisitely beautiful blue blossom. We asked what its name was in Spanish and she said it was jacarandá (almost the same as in English) and she hated it. 'First the blossom, then the seeds, then the leaves. For me, I'd cut it down tomorrow.' It's not hard to sympathise, although maybe she'd miss it when it had gone.

Here in San Sebastián, Doris's outrage was shared by many others but the town's mayor explained in an interview with the local press that the council had to spend large sums of money every couple of years to relay the paving. The flamboyanes would be replaced by native species which would provide shade just as effectively but without the risk, such as acebuche and almácigo.

I had no idea what either of those was, but I can now reveal that acebuche is wild olive. It has a pleasantly gnarled trunk and broad, spreading branches. Almácigo is a wild relative of the pistachio, equally attractive and shady. Both are native to the Canary Islands and both can live for a thousand years or more, by which time they will be fifteen metres high and with trunks a metre wide, so there won't be much left of the pavement, but by then it will probably be under the sea anyway.

The lost coffee

 Like Arthur Sullivan's Lost Chord, there are some experiences you know will never be recaptured. I retain a haunting memory of what may have been the best coffee I shall ever taste.

Was it really, or was it just the occasion? And Andrés. Funny thing, memory, plays tricks, you can never be sure. I'm entirely sure about Andrés though. He was not so much an experience as an ongoing succession of them, a phenomenon. Among a whirlpool of memories released by the shock of reading his obituary recently, one that floated effortlessly to the top was the vivid recollection of his coffee.

One Saturday lunchtime in our early days here we were sitting on bar stools in what was then Andrés' cafe-restaurant - there were many, over the years - chatting to an off-duty doctor and his wife, both English, who had escaped briefly from a cruise ship. It hadn't occurred to me that cruise ships need a resident doctor, but of course they do. Several thousand mostly elderly people eating, drinking and bopping like teenagers are not all going to get through the week without needing help.

'There's nearly always a death or two,' the doctor told us phlegmatically. I don't know if he was exaggerating. Behind the counter, Andrés was busy with a tea towel. Plump but buoyant he had an instantly recognisable gait, floating as lightly as a dinghy, but at this point he paused briefly on his way past, sensing that the doctor had said something shocking. We explained what it was - even in our hesitant Spanish of those days the word death was not difficult to convey - and Andrés winced theatrically.

'Most of the passengers survive,' the doctor reassured us. 'It's my job to keep them going. Always ready for a heart attack. Jump into action. Very well equipped.'

Andrés refilled our wine glasses. We were indulging in a light lunch at the bar. Our host placed a couple of tapas dishes in front of us and another two for the doctor and his wife. Where others would have offered saucers of salted peanuts, Andrés produced plates of mini toasts with almogrote, the spicy Gomeran spread made from goat cheese. And plates of olives, but not your acidic green things spooned from a large jar: Andrés had prepared black olives in a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and finely chopped garlic.

Not only was Andrés proudly Gomeran, he also did everything with flair and artistry. His restaurants were wildly successful but they came and went with dizzying rapidity because he got bored once they were firmly established. They were instantly recognisable by his love of drapes, whether fishing nets slung across the ceiling or brightly striped Canary Islands cloth decorating the walls. This particular incarnation was small but cosy with the fishing net treatment, trellises around the walls and lots of flowers. At one end of the room the toilet doors were hidden by a lattice screen with a helpful sign attached: Si quieres ver a Chipude, quítate de delante de Arure. If you want to see Chipude, move from in front of Arure.

'Must be off soon,' the doctor said. 'Need to be back on board when they all roll in from their coach trips.'

'I'll make you a coffee,' Andrés offered. 'How about a carajillo?' None of us knew what that was, which pleased him immensely because it gave him licence to stage a performance at the espresso coffee machine.

Taking four brandy balloons from the shelf he polished them carefully with his tea towel then heated them from the coffee machine's steam nozzle which, properly managed, can generate furious hissing and white clouds swirling to the ceiling. The first ingredient of the coffee was, encouragingly, a generous shot of good Spanish brandy poured from one of those bottles with a clever plastic thingy in its neck that allows people like Andrés to upend it and pour the precious liquid from a great height. No doubt the brandy goes some way towards explaining the enduring memorability of this creation but - no, wait, wait! - not the whole way, not at all.

Next the strong black coffee fresh from the machine, a sprinkle of sugar and finally, the surprise ingredient: a slice of lemon. I'd never thought of adding lemon to coffee but it transformed this one into something wonderful. I can taste it now, a blend of bitterness from the coffee softened by the brandy, with the taste buds delighted by the fruity zing of the lemon.

Not long ago Andrés gave up launching new restaurants, limiting himself to occasional bursts of creativity to decorate the stage at special events such as fiestas and shows, with extensive use of fabric drapes and fishing nets.

Strangely, I have never ordered a carajillo again since that first one. Perhaps it's a fear that without the magic of Andrés it would just taste like coffee.

-------------- NOTES --------------

For Andrés I've made an exception in using his real name in this little tribute, partly because he's no longer with us but also because he would be impossible to disguise. He is missed by all who knew him, which includes practically everyone in San Sebastián and many others throughout the island.

As for the coffee: well yes, it's sort of like Irish coffee but even simpler. No cream involved and you don't have to pour anything over a teaspoon unless you want the coffee to sit in a separate layer above the brandy, but there's really no point, and anyway that trick is far more impressive in a barraquito. (So now I've got to explain what that is - see below.)

The carajillo requires about two measures of black coffee to one of brandy or, if you happen to be in Cuba, rum. In Mexico they use mezcal, I'm told. The lemon can be added as lemon rind to the spirit or, as demonstrated by Andrés, as a slice added at the end. Sugar is optional.

If you want something really sweet, however - sweet enough to replace your tiramisu dessert or Death by Chocolate - a barraquito is a better bet. It's a much showier extension of the carajillo concept, comprising four ingredients in attractively distinct layers served in a tall, thin glass.

At the bottom is condensed milk, which is always sweet in Spain. Next, a clear liqueur which should be the Spanish Licor 43, also very sweet, flavoured with vanilla, herbs and lots of other stuff. Next the layer of black coffee, then finally a topping of milk frothed from the steam nozzle, some of which mixes with the coffee to give you a fifth layer. Decorate with a sprinkle of powdered cinnamon and chopped lemon peel or a lemon slice hooked over the rim.

Having admired the barraquito and taken a photo, you stir it all up before drinking. It will save you money by providing your dessert, coffee and liqueur all in one gulp. Far too sweet for me and anyway it was invented in Tenerife, not La Gomera.