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.

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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.

Life and limb

Responding to a plaintive call, I found Janine seated on the floor with legs curled daintily under her like a ballet dancer in repose.

'You fell.'

She nodded. With her damaged sense of balance it needs only a small error for gravity to take over.

'I'm alright,' she assured me.

'Okay, well let's…'

'But I can't get up because my arm hurts when I move it.'

Ah.

With resourceful use of a footstool as a first stage we managed to get her upright and sitting in a chair. I found in the first aid box a triangular cotton sling (no idea where it came from) printed with diagrams of support for a wide choice of injured limbs, but none of them explained what to do if the corners of the triangle wouldn't reach the patient's chin. Try before you buy.

A rapid search through the rag bag yielded an old cotton shirt kept for oiling the bike chain but not yet torn into pieces. I wrapped it around her elbow and tied the shirt's arms behind her neck. Then with the help of a solicitous taxi driver we made our way to the hospital Urgencias unit, a commendably succinct name for the English Accident and Emergency. The taxi driver summoned a wheelchair.

The only problem I've got with these wonderful places is that you have to watch someone you love being wheeled away through a doorway that swings shut behind them, leaving you with nothing to do and nowhere to go except into the waiting room, where other disconsolate souls wait in silent anxiety for good news or bad. I briefly exchanged disaster reports with a couple of them.

After an hour, the kindly receptionist told me my wife was fine but still needed to be examined by the specialist in heavy falls, the traumatólogo - another splendidly evocative Spanish term.

Finally Janine was wheeled back to me again with her arm strapped into a complex sling of stout padded ribbons like a harness for restraining dangerous prisoners: there, just try and get out of that! She was clutching my old shirt which she'd saved from being chucked into a bin.

Radiography had confirmed a fracture of the upper arm, but not a catastrophic one, and the specialist considered it might repair itself without an operation. Worth a try.

Across a huge area of her upper body had crept a stain the colour of a ripe aubergine, but nobody seemed too bothered about that. Contusion caused by the physical shock. Right.

During the next few days we learned to live with three arms instead of four. The first and worst challenge was working out how to change her shirt.

'I don't think we can do it without taking off the sling,' I said. Topology, the science of loops and knots. However, I've watched in admiration on the beach as one of the regular swimmers pulls on his swimming trunks then magically removes his underpants from underneath, so…

No. A five-minute tangle of shirt and sling was enough to convince. I photographed the device from every angle then unlaced it. We got it back on again afterwards, a heartening triumph.

A few days later a repeat visit to the hospital - not to Urgencias this time but a pre-arranged consultation with the traumatólogo - brought bad news. There was now a small desplazamiento of the fracture, a misalignment. It's amazing how a friendly chap in a white coat can inform you that your upper arm is in two pieces yet sound so unperturbed.

'We can operate,' he offered, 'or if you don't want that, we can try a plaster.'

We opted for the plaster. Gathering a small team of helpers he had Janine wheeled into an operating room where they arranged her comfortably in a chair then unlaced the hi-tech sling and chucked it in a heap on the table, from which I removed it, folded it neatly and stashed it away in my pocket. You never know.

One of the helper nurses, a young man in pale blue overalls and latex gloves, was mixing water and white powder in a large plastic bowl.

'More,' specified the doctor. The nurse poured in more powder.

'More.'

His assistant hesitated. 'This will be a big plaster,' said the specialist.

Arranging Janine's forearm in front of her chest, he wrapped the entire limb in a layer of soft padding then began binding it with lengths of bandage dripping with white paste. What had started as a slim, frail limb grew beefier. Around the elbow it was soon the size of a prize-winning marrow and the assistant charged with holding it in place was turning pink. 'The weight,' explained the doctor, 'is important. It needs to pull on the fracture.'

The final touch was a loop like a long soft sausage around her neck to support the forearm, then it was back home to see what nature could achieve.

Our appointment at the hospital a few days later brought, this time, good news. The X-ray plate showed an upper arm now in a single straight line. 'La plaquita, perfecta!' enthused one of the nurses, plaquita being a little placa, the X-ray plate. It's actually a very big X-ray plate but the -ita clarifies that it's being friendly and helpful.

For a day or two the patient with her now marrow-sized arm nursed it quietly at home but when eventually we took a taxi into town, the strangest discovery was that people don't take broken arms seriously.

Sympathy you get, yes: 'It's broken? Oohh…' but then a joke, usually about me beating her up. Friend Miguel, a habitual joker, tried to rub it better over the plaster. Patience is advised: 'Poco a poco,' little by little, a handy phrase you can apply to almost anything. And another of those: 'La vida!' Life.

Yes, life. It seems to break almost everyone's arm sooner or later. I'm not sure whether that's comforting or alarming because I've never broken one of mine yet, although I did break a leg at the age of six so perhaps that lets me off the hook.

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

First, the triangular cotton sling I tried and failed to employ. It's based on a specification by Friedrich von Esmarch, a nineteenth century expert in battlefield first aid. Perhaps people were smaller in those days.

The English equivalent of our traumatólogo is an orthopaedist, a term which derives through French from the Greek orthos meaning straight or correct and paed- which relates to children. That seems a bit tenuous to me, although children do tend to break things I suppose, including themselves.

When as a six-year-old my leg encountered the front bumper of a Post Office van - entirely my fault - I spent the next 11 weeks and two days in hospital, mostly horizontal with one leg stretched by a cord and pulley system. It's technically known as traction. I can't remember how they prevented me from being dragged bodily to the foot of the bed, perhaps there was a retaining rope somewhere. I do remember very clearly that an older boy in the adjacent bed had a walking stick with which he kept hooking away my teddy bear, which was called Wumpy.

The reason I'm recounting this moving story is that currently my wife is getting all the sympathy and I'd like some too. 

A queen and a sardine

Already audible in the distance is an insistent drumming: diddle-diddle, diddle-diddle - PAM PAM PAM!

In an adjacent street a man is hurrying in the opposite direction from everyone else, looking slightly anxious. Fairly tall, fairly slim, fairly old but still upright, he is trying not to be noticed. This isn't going to work because he is a familiar figure in these streets, easily detected by his white Edwardian sideburns and the Australian-style wide-brimmed hat glued to his head.

Several people are kind enough to warn him he's in the wrong street, the procession is approaching along the broader pedestrian thoroughfare. He assures them he's aware of that but has something else to do first.

This is true but evasive. Finally an English friend passing by, a lady of forthright opinions, unafraid to question the questionable, pauses and demands to know why he's going the wrong way. Caught with no hope of escape, he has to admit it: his urgent mission at the moment is to go the wrong way deliberately. He is trying to get away from La Gran Cabalgata del Carnaval, the carnival cavalcade, highlight of the year for many Gomerans.

Specifically, he's trying to get away from the drums which lead the procession. A Gomeran drum, tambor, is not big - scarcely wider than this strange fellow's hat, in fact - but it can make a man-sized noise in the hands of a young lad. It's mostly boys who do this, boys are genetically programmed to love drums.

At least a dozen of these drums walloped enthusiastically are at this moment creating the diddle-diddle rhythm in concert with a similarly sized group clacking chacaras, the weighty Gomeran version of a flamenco castanet. Interspersed at regular intervals is the PAM PAM PAM of a seriously large drum banged from both sides.

'It hurts my ears,' our hero explains pathetically. Although hard of hearing, he suffers from the strange paradox that he is over-sensitive to loud noise.

'So why,' pursues the forthright friend, 'do you come into town at all when you know there's the carnival procession? Why not just stay at home?'

Fair question. The thing is, the drummers will be followed by a troupe of dancers twirling prettily and then the carriage bearing La Reina del Carnaval, the Carnival Queen. He needs to watch that go by because the daughter of a Gomeran friend has the honour this year of being chosen as - well, not actually the Queen herself, but one of the two Damas de Honor, the Queen's Ladies in Waiting.

From a safe distance he watches the drummers reach the Plaza de Las Americas, the town's main square, still banging away. Finally they stop and begin to disperse into the crowd. He runs back along the street and reaches the plaza just in time to find the Queen's carriage already halted and the Queen being helped down, closely followed by her costume. That needs explaining: the Queen is still decently if skimpily clothed but her costume is a self-supporting, soaring piece of architecture created from feathers, wire, glittery cloth, beads and extraordinary imagination. These things are works of art.

Once safely at ground level the Queen is returned to the middle of her feathers and strapped in for the photographs. Meanwhile, he sees the two Damas still up there on the carriage but preparing to follow their Queen back to earth. They are both ridiculously beautiful and one of them is waving at him. Sara, his friend's daughter! He waves back cheerily, relieved to have arrived in time.

He rejoins his wife at the place where he'd abandoned her and they wander off to see the rest of the procession. Fundamentally it's a series of travelling parties, with most of the carriages recognisable from previous years although redecorated to suit this year's carnival theme. All are noisy and some are very noisy with front-mounted boomboxes, but they're a little less daunting than the drums.

And perhaps not quite as noisy, either, as the Sardine will be in a few days' time.

Carnaval ends (notionally) with a weird event called El Entierro de La Sardina, the Burial of the Sardine. Our sideburned Englishman has attended it many times in the past because it's great fun and also pleasingly irreverent. A mock funeral, it begins with a slow, solemn procession through the streets, led by a small cohort of drummers beating a slow marching pace ahead of a funeral carriage on which lies a sardine the size of Moby Dick. Made of painted paper on a wire frame, it usually boasts scarlet Marilyn Monroe lips and sexy eyelashes.

Accompanying the corpse is an archbishop in fine flowing robes, wielding a chamber pot into which he dips a pastry brush to flick holy water over the watching crowd. He may occasionally fortify himself from a packet of holy cheese-and-onion crisps and a glass of blessed whisky, supplied by his fawning acolytes. Behind and around him are the mourners, hordes of wailing women in slinky black dresses, most of whom are actually young men. Young men are genetically programmed to enjoy shrieking hysterically.

The cortège finally arrives at the beach where the deceased sardine is burned rather than buried despite the event's name. In true Spanish fashion, this sad ceremony is followed by a communal feast of grilled sardines.

Also in true Spanish fashion, although this event definitively marks the end of Carnaval nobody can bear to stop and there will be another procession and dance at the weekend. If I were the Sardine I'd be a bit miffed about that, but of course it doesn't get chance to find out.

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

Carnaval goes back a long way, being another of the many pagan celebrations cleverly assimilated by Christianity and especially by the Catholic religion, which welcomes any excuse for a party. It's obviously linked - along with the Easter celebration of rebirth - to ancient festivities marking the end of winter and arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere.

In the Christian calendar Carnaval offers a chance to feast and dance shortly before the 40 days of austerity known as Lent, itself a precursor to Easter. The most important day during the celebrations, which typically extend over a week or more, is Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. In Britain it's better known as Pancake Day and in other countries as Mardi Gras, which is French for 'greasy Tuesday' because - but no, let's not get diverted. In Gomera and Spain as a whole it's martes de Carnaval, Carnival Tuesday, so there's no confusion here about what it's for.

The Entierro de la Sardina symbolises the end of the carnival shenanigans and gluttony, a clear enough metaphor. But why the sardine? Why not a mullet or tuna? A pig, goat or turkey?

As usual there are conflicting theories but the one I find most convincing puts the blame squarely on Carlos III of Spain. He was a big fan of tradition and after coming to the throne in 1759 he insisted the people of Madrid should fast and take things seriously during Lent but, as encouragement, he indulged them in an orgy of eating and drinking in the run-up. He even arranged a splendid fiesta for the final day, at which everyone would feast for free on sardines, a rare luxury in Madrid. Unfortunately by the time the fish had travelled from the coast across mountain, valley and plain to reach Madrid they had all gone rotten, so they buried them and dined on free meat instead.

A story like this was never going to be forgotten quickly and the final feast became an annual event with the sardine as its symbolic martyr. From Madrid it spread to the rest of Spain, the Americas and much of Europe. In Britain we ended up with pancakes and lemon juice.

If I were you

At around 11:15 at night, as Bill is finally slipping into dreamland after eating too much supper, he is jerked back to life by a gasp from his wife.

'I've got it!'

'Eh? Whatsamatter?'

'I've just realised why he kept telling me the time.'

'Doris…'

'Sorry.'

Bill mutters something grumpily, turns over and falls asleep. Doris smiles in quiet triumph, turns over and lies awake for another half hour. She has made a big breakthrough.

She and her husband are staying in La Gomera for three weeks, renting an apartment, and two friends have just arrived for a week's winter sunshine break in a hotel. Doris's problem began earlier in the day with a strange conversation while she and Bill were down at the port to meet their friends from the ferry. As they waited near the dock, Doris decided to check where the luggage van would park when it came off the ship, for passengers to retrieve their suitcases and rucksacks.

She approached a member of the Armas ferry dock crew and addressed him in her fledgling Spanish: 'Buenos días!'

'Buenos días, señora.'

'Cuando llega el barco…' When the ship arrives…

'A las nueve y media, señora.' Nine thirty. He smiled affably and began to turn away.

Doris hurriedly tried again. 'No, no… cuando llega, dónde…'

'Nueve y media,' he repeated a touch more briskly, holding up nine fingers then crossing one of them.

Doris gave up, perplexed. The ferry sailed into the harbour shortly after nine thirty, their two friends descended the gangway waving cheerfully, reclaimed their luggage from the van and all was well. Except that Doris's failure of communication niggled at the back of her mind. As a retired teacher, she liked to understand things.

At breakfast the next day in their apartment she reveals her breakthrough to an entranced husband.

'I know why he thought I was asking what time the ferry would arrive.'

'Yeah?' Bill reaches for the jam. 'Good stuff this. What is it? Label says albarry, albarrycock? Or albarrycoke is it?'

'Al-barry-cock-ay. Apricot. I know what I got wrong. I should have used the subjunctive. I should have said cuando llegue el barco. It means literally, when the ship may arrive.'

'You'd hope there's not much doubt about that. Hijacked by pirates I suppose, could be. Or hits an iceberg.' Bill sniggers. Doris punches him across the table, not too hard. She's very pleased with herself.

'Sub what, was it?' Bill enquires, unwisely.

'Junctive.' She has now realised, she explains to her husband, that subjunctive verbs are very important in Spanish. People use them all the time. In English they've almost disappeared.

'If I were you, is about the only common one I can think of,' she tells him. 'Were'.

'Posh. If I was you, is what most folk say. Ninety-nine percent of the British population, guaranteed.'

'Not if they've been taught properly at school, Bill.'

Bill blows a raspberry. Doris sighs. But there's an entire chapter in her Teach-Yourself-Spanish book about subjunctives in the present, past and future tenses.

'I'd skip that one, frankly,' Bill advises. 'Were I you.'

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

Apologies if you know this already, but here it is anyway: the subjunctive mood is used for occasions when you're talking of what may be rather than what is. In English it barely exists any more, lingering only in that other-world version of English, reportese. For example: I advised that he consult a solicitor.

In real life most people would say I advised him to consult a solicitor, or perhaps …that he should consult a solicitor.

Not so in Spanish, unfortunately. You hear the subjunctive all the time once you're tuned in. The first one I recognised (eventually) came from an elderly lady we frequently passed on our way into town, who always greeted us with ¡Que lo pasen bien!, literally 'that you may pass it well', equivalent to 'have a good time'. I'm sure the elderly lady had never heard of the subjunctive, she just did it.

And on Bill's other concern: the word for apricot is albaricoque. Some people prefer peach jam, melocotón, or strawberry, fresa, or even orange, naranja, which of course is a special jam called marmalade but all jams are called mermelada in Spanish, another little breakthrough you have to make. 

The threat

After the excitement of Christmas and New Year we were into the brief lull before the even bigger excitement of Three Kings Day on January the sixth. Children of all ages were still on the loose in town, unconstrained by the disciplines of school.

'Okay, one go on each machine. Just one, alright?'

This was a young father caving in to the demands of his son, a dauntingly lively toddler of around three years old who was already fully capable of dominating any situation and winning any argument.

The toddler - let's call him Adán - had only recently been dragged away from trying to break every see-saw and wobbly pony in the small playground near the beach and had now, unfortunately, spotted the adult exercise machines close by.

These big, solid contraptions are not painted in bright nursery colours, they don't have smiley faces, they don't look like baby dinosaurs or fairy castles, yet they irresistibly attract children of all ages and particularly the tinies who are least able to do anything useful with them. There's a lesson here for designers of children's playgrounds: offer them totally unsuitable machinery in plain colours that they have no hope of operating and they will home in like bees to an orchid.

Adán leapt on one of the little rotating discs where you perch and twist to try and persuade your creaking spine to unstick its vertebrae. He was pretty good at that but quickly got bored and scampered over to the leg swinger that you stand on with both feet to swing from side to side.

That didn't move at all for the featherweight toddler so he galloped over to the skiing machine. Even adults have difficulty with this one, which involves arm and leg coordination, and the diminutive Adán couldn't do much more than stamp his feet up and down on one of the pedals.

Over to the bicep exerciser, then, where you sit down, reach overhead to grab two handles then pull, cleverly raising yourself off the ground. Visitors love this, they take pictures of each other suspended in mid-air because it's actually quite easy but makes you look strong, healthy and having a fun time on holiday. Adán sat on the seat while father pulled the handles, raising and lowering him to squeals of delight then complaint: higher, faster!

'Time to go,' said his father, depositing him on the ground.

Adán ran back to the spine twister. Father ordered him to get off it. Adán jumped on to the skiing machine.

'Adán, we agreed, just one go on each. Come along now.'

The toddler had another try at getting the leg swinger to swing.

'Right,' said his dad. Pulling a mobile phone out of his pocket he tapped the screen a few times, put it to his ear and said 'Good morning, is that the office of the Three Kings? I'm afraid I have some bad news about the behaviour of Adán H-------. At the moment he's not behaving well at all.'

Adán ran over to grab his father's leg. 'No, don't tell them that!'

'In fact he's behaving very badly. I've asked him to get off some exercise machines and come home with me but...'

'No!' screamed the toddler, jumping up to try and grab the phone. 'Don't tell them that, papi! I'll come.'

Father looked down at him. 'You'll come right now Adán? Mmm. I think maybe he's decided to be good after all,' he told the phone. 'I'll report back to you later.'

In Spain the Three Kings, Los Reyes Magos, deliver presents overnight to children, but only if they've been well behaved. There are opposed opinions about whether parents should use them as a threat. Child psychologists think it's cheating and will breed mistrust when the kids find out what's going on. Parents of young children think it's brilliant because it works.

Watching Adán I think I'm on his dad's side in this case: a simple solution that avoided having to cart him off under one arm like a bag of potatoes, which would be undignified and very noisy. We saw Adán a couple of days later racing around on one of those dinky little strider bikes, so the Three Kings must have judged that he'd mended his ways in the nick of time.