Strings and things

Occasionally, seized by nostalgia for the days when my guitar played a significant role, I blow the dust off, pick a few notes, strum a chord or two and perhaps even attempt a song, after making sure the windows are closed.

So: one Friday evening, guitar perched on knees, I twang a preliminary chord, C major. Needs tuning. Adjust second, third and fourth strings without problem then the fifth parts in two, pyoing! as soon as I pluck it.

Examining the remnants, I can see why. I'm not good at guitar maintenance. The last time I bought a full set of strings was in the UK, many years ago, and the guy in the music shop gazed at my guitar in disbelief. 'When did you last change this lot?' Umm, several years ago. Well, maybe ten. Could be fifteen. He nodded. 'We have a name for strings like these,' he said sadly. 'They're what we call grotty.' His glottal stop on the 'grotty' cleverly imitated the noise made my low-E string, which had a knot in it. He sold me a replacement set of nylon strings and suddenly I had a brand new guitar, warm, mellow and resonant.

But that was then, and already many more years have passed. At least ten. Could be fifteen... This newly-ruptured fifth string clearly signals an encroaching malaise of old age and weariness. I'm talking about the guitar strings.

I decide to start by replacing just the broken string. There is a specialist music shop I know of but it's in Tenerife, requiring a ferry and bus trip. However, after a quarter-century love affair with La Gomera we have uncovered a few of its secrets. We know it's entirely possible to buy guitar strings right here in the capital, San Sebastián. There is no music shop but there is a shop, heavily disguised, that sells guitars.

Here's what you do. Follow that elegant lady with the crisp hairdo, swirling red skirt and matching high heels - let's call her Carmen - as she clickety-clacks purposefully along the pedestrian street. Carmen is on her way to buy a new outfit!

Watch to see which shop she enters. The smartest fashion boutique in town, of course. Follow her in. Make your way past the tailored jackets, the sparkly dresses, the calfskin handbags and red-soled shoes, the discreet display of fortified bodyshapers - and there, right at the back, you will come upon a little cubbyhole where the walls are adorned with beautiful, curvaceous, polished-wood acoustic guitars.

Show the lady assistant your old, grotty string as a sample, explain that it was once a wire-wound nylon fifth, and she will fetch you a replacement. No raised eyebrows or snide remarks, just service with a smile. Any guitar is something to be treasured and nurtured here, where the proprietor's husband is one of the island's best guitarists.

I guess any long-established community is full of useful little secrets like this, the local know-how. It's not a question of excluding the outsider, anyone would be delighted to tell you where to buy a guitar string. It's just how things develop when services are run by the folk who live here rather than global conglomerates. For instance, to renew your driving licence... oh, later, later. I must get back to my guitar practice.

Give us a kiss

We’re on the beach, freshly changed into our swimsuits for the daily dip when a neighbour approaches to introduce her friend Eva, a slim, attractive woman considerably younger than me (that's not difficult) and clad in a minimal bikini.

'Encantado,' I tell her (delighted to meet you) in the proper Spanish manner then, perhaps knocked off balance by the splendid cleavage, I offer her my hand. This is not Spanish at all, it's ridiculously British.

'Un besito!' (a little kiss) admonishes Eva quite rightly, and offers me her right cheek then her left. I happily oblige, having absolutely no problem in sharing little kisses with beautiful women. 'We kiss a lot, we Spanish,' she explains, which of course I've known for the last thirty years, it's one of my favourite characteristics, but somehow the British reserve still pops up when I take my foot off its neck.

Accompanying this pleasant woman is her equally attractive teenage daughter in jeans and teeshirt who has been up all night partying. She collapses onto the sand and falls asleep within moments of arriving so plays no part in the interchange, which is perhaps fortunate because otherwise I might have multiplied my social failure. The other day, another woman we already knew stopped for a chat in the street, also trailing a teenage daughter. This one managed to remain awake during the conversation and, as we hadn’t met before, her mother introduced us. We both failed to greet her with a besito, just said 'Hi', which in Spain is less than you'd offer a tortoise. Why, for goodness' sake?

It's because the instant intimacy of kissing just doesn't come naturally to us creatures of the cooler North. We've even developed the air kiss to avoid actual contact. Yet it's so nice, this Spanish physicality, it feels so right when you get used to it.

Men don't generally kiss other men in Spain but they do touch each other to an extent that would raise eyebrows in Britain. Look, for example, at Antonio and Ramón, two senior citizens, slowly approaching each other in the street. They pause, exchange a word of greeting, then both reach out to hold the other's arm or shoulder while swapping a bit of news, before moving on.

Look at those two younger guys wearing skateboard gear. They do the vertical handclasp favoured by youth and American presidents, then they pat each other on the arm, then one of them punches the other playfully in the chest.

You will never see two people greet each other without some form of physical contact. I've got used to people rubbing my upper arm as though offering comfort - 'Keep your pecker up, things can only get better!' but they're not doing that at all, they're just saying hello, nice to see you. Waiters and waitresses who know you may lean on your shoulder while taking your order.

I love it all and I'm gradually improving my contact skills. I can even rub somebody's arm with convincing fluency.

But here's a health warning: never carry this behaviour back with you to the UK. When you've experienced someone going rigid with alarm at being hispanically hugged you'll realise that, like fresh bananas, goat cheese and Barcelona football shirts, this kind of behaviour just doesn't travel well.

Floating heads

It happened as she was trying to leave the sea. She slipped, staggered, lost her balance and ended up rolling on her back, helpless. Ventura is of generous proportions and no longer young.

It's always a bit up-and-downy where sea meets beach, you expect ripples and ridges in the shallows, but sometimes the tides, winds and breakers sculpt a deeper step. So when wading in you're faced with a sudden plummet up to your chest in cold water - shriek! - and when you're trying to get out it's like scaling a hill of coffee beans.

Both of these can be entertaining to watch, but Ventura's current plight, struggling on her back like a turtle, was alarming. It doesn't take long for someone to drown even in shallow water, or panic and have a heart attack.

Her companions, still in the sea, were splashing towards her and I ran down the beach to lend a hand. By the time I got there a younger woman had pulled Ventura right way up but was now dealing with an escalation of the crisis as the top half of Ventura's bathing costume had treacherously released its contents.

I studied my toes for a few moments while that was sorted out, then helped the young woman lift Ventura to her feet. We guided her up the beach to the shower, which the ladies use as a changing area. She was trying to smile but clearly shaken. 'It's the sand shifting under your feet,' she explained, 'and the water dragging at your legs. I just, you know...' Of course. But you feel daft when you fall over.

The other ladies returned to the sea and we followed. Now, J and I bathe in order to swim - healthy exercise as well as primitive pleasure. These ladies do not swim. They stand motionless in the water up to their necks, a flotilla of heads among the ripples, doing nothing at all except chatting. Why, you might wonder, would anyone go to all this trouble - changing into costumes, struggling in and out of the sea, showering, getting dressed again - if they're just going to stand and chat? They could do that far more easily over a nice cup of coffee.

Okay, let's ask the lady with the green flower-pot sun hat. Why do you bathe in the sea? 'Well, it's good for you,' she replies, 'sea water is good for the body.' If you press further, 'why?' like a toddler trying to drive everyone nuts, she adds 'Well, of course it's good! Good for your skin, good for your muscles, your joints, your circulation...' What a daft question, everyone knows sea water is good for you.

Maybe she's right. Maybe there's something mysterious in sea water other than plastic bags and nitrate run-off that subtly benefits the human body. But I think it's just that people like water. We're all descended originally from the sea sponge. This informal seaborne tertulia, discussion group, is popular because it's enjoyable to natter and gossip while being gently massaged by the waters we came from.

They give up in winter when the sea gets chillier. Ventura has given up altogether because she's scared of falling over again, which is a shame. But there you are, growing old gracefully often requires meek acceptance of the inevitable. Each year some leave the tertulia and others join, while the earth turns and the moon circles and the tides come and go, and that's how things are.

Revenge of the shrimp

Preliminary confession: this story is not really about La Gomera, it's a life-or-death story that could take place anywhere. But it happens to have taken place here, so I'm going to relate it anyway.

It's driving me mad, this tickle. A crumb or something on one of my tonsils. I discover that by arching my tongue upwards at the back I can scrape it against the tonsil but that just makes it worse, the tickle becomes a sharp little stab like a pinprick. Strange and slightly disconcerting.

Peering into the bathroom mirror, mouth wide open as at the dentist's, I can't see anything suspicious. But wait - when I persuade my tongue to lie down flat, maybe there's just a tiny glint of something right at the back?

With the bedside torch I confirm the diagnosis. There is a tiny hair sticking out of my tonsil. A cautious probe with a finger fails to make contact but produces a warning heave.

Pause for thought. How did a bit of hair get stuck in my tonsil? Doesn't take long to work it out. This is a summer weekend and we had indulged in lunch at a local café, sitting outdoors in the sunshine. Persuaded by Toñio the proprietor - 'These are wonderful, fresh this morning, a few hours ago they were swimming in the sea' - we ordered a plateful of shrimps. He was absolutely right, was Toñio, really fresh shrimps are a revelation. Subtle, delicate, a sea breeze captured in a little pink body.

You get in a terrible mess mind you, as the pile of discarded heads, legs, tails and carapaces begins to take over the plate, but that's part of the delight, this is hands-on stuff, real food. But (here we're getting to the core of the story) these creatures also have long, spindly whiskers attached to their heads. Not silky soft like a cat's but stiff and brittle like porcelain needles. Ahah.

So the situation seems to be that I have a fragment of shrimp whisker stuck in my tonsil. It can't be left there because for one thing it tickles and for another it could cause - well, who knows, inflammation, infection, swelling. You can choke to death on a swollen tonsil.

Got to come out, but how? Fingers are never going to do the job, the tonsil is just too far away. I take a small pair of tweezers from the first aid cabinet and have a go with those. Holding the tip of the handle I can just about reach the tonsil with the business end, but in order to tweeze I need to get my finger and thumb in there too... As I struggle it suddenly occurs to me that if the tweezers slipped out of my grip and the swallow reflex kicked in, things could quickly get much worse.

I explain my fears to J, who is watching. I realise I'm sweating. 'Longer tweezers?' she suggests with commendable clarity. She hands me the long, pointy tweezers we use for extracting splinters. Better, I can get closer with those. But still not quite close enough, and I can't see what I'm doing because my fingers are in the way and... I'm beginning to curse, always a bad sign, nerves giving way.

'Let me have a go.' I hand J the tweezers, glad to transfer responsibility and become a patient. I perch on a stool with mouth open like a gargoyle while she fishes with the tweezers, then leaps backwards when I suddenly heave. She's having the same trouble as me - even these longer tweezers are not up to the job.

Pause for thought, again. What we need is even longer tweezers. Inspiration: in my toolbox I have a pair of long-nose pliers. Need a bit of cleaning up first, remove bike oil and grit. I wipe them over with medical alcohol which seems the correct thing to do anyway before sticking them down my throat.

All up to J now, there's no way I can get involved. She gingerly introduces the pointy end of the pliers. All I can see is yellow handles waving around beneath my nose.

A childhood image springs to mind, a river barbel with gaping jaws trying to bite my dad's fingers off as he probed for the fishhook.

I feel a tweak in my tonsil. 'Got it!' She has, she has! Vast relief. She holds up the shard of whisker still gripped by the pliers. Insignificantly small but clearly evil, needle-thin and fragile as fine china.

Just to check I rub the tonsil with the back of my tongue. Uh-oh - a sharp little stab of pain. There's more in there. It must have snapped. This is fast turning into a nightmare.

'You'll have to go to the hospital,' J says, giving up. She's right of course, they'd have something better to fish with than long-nose pliers. But, I dunno. I mean, it's only a little bit of shrimp whisker.

'Let's have one more go.' The thing is, though, this whisker is sticking out sideways. So she will have to try and extract it the same way, sideways, rather than hoping to yank it straight out. This is the kind of thing you learn by experience.

Gamely, J takes up the pliers again. I hold myself rigid as a stuffed barbel while she manoeuvres the pliers between my teeth. She is grunting quietly with concentration. My tonsil reports a tickle. It goes on and on. Is that something sliding I can feel, a slight pull as of a needle withdrawing?

Finally she pulls the pliers out of my mouth and holds them up triumphantly. She's got all of it this time. It's extraordinarily long. How on earth did that much whisker manage to bury itself in my tonsil, without my noticing it at the time? But then you don't really feel a hypodermic syringe either.

This is clearly the shrimp's ultimate weapon. Dead though it may be, it will do its best to wreak a sly and terrible revenge.

Postscript: please don't let this discourage you from ordering fresh shrimps, they're great. Just look carefully before you pop anything into your mouth...