Bananas About La Palma

By David M. Addison

With a song for every occasion, the author embarks on another adventure, this time to La Palma in the Canary Islands.

Having learnt from previous encounters that neighbours are not conducive to good holidays, he elects this time to stay in a remote country cottage. If he imagined this would avoid encountering irritating people and ensure a trouble-free, idyllic, romantic holiday with his long-suffering wife, he was sadly mistaken. His gift for putting his foot in it, as usual, results in a series of tight scrapes, excruciatingly embarrassing for him, but which provides the reader with a vicarious sense of pleasure, not to mention Schadenfreude, appropriately enough, for Germans seem to cross the writers path with amazing regularity.

Follow in the authors footsteps, let him be your guide as he explores every aspect of this island, which, he concludes, is one of the most spectacular he has ever visited, yet one of the least visited in the Canarian archipelago. Along the way, seen from his personal and offbeat perspective, he will undoubtedly inform you, certainly entertain you and hopefully persuade you - you must visit this island before you die.

But before he dies, the author considers some possible solutions before staring eternity in the face

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9781467895972

David M. Addison

Born a long time ago in a place far, far away even from most other places in Scotland, David M. Addison grew up, at least in the physical sense, and moved away from his native north-east and began travelling the globe, though he does make occasional returns to his native soil to visit old haunts and haunt the old relations who have not disowned him. This is the fifth book recounting his travels and once again he has been drawn back to Italy for which has a particular fondness. For more information on the author and his books visit his website www.davidmaddison.org or http://www.filedby.com/author/david_m_addison/1371971/

Book preview

© 2008 David M. Addison. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 5/30/2008

ISBN: 978-1-4343-7232-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4343-7233-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-9597-2 (ebook)

By the same author

AN ITALIAN JOURNEY

A MEANDER IN MENORCA

SOMETIME IN SORRENTO

Contents

Chapter 1

Setting Off on

the Wrong Foot

Chapter 2

An Early Start

Chapter 3

A Terrible Responsibility

Chapter 4

Arrivals

Chapter 5

Deadly Quiet

Chapter 6

First Night Nerves

Chapter 7

Cue for a song

and other queues

Chapter 8

A Representative

and a Sample

Chapter 9

An Excursion

and Alarms

Chapter 10

To the Lighthouse

Chapter 11

A Step Back to the Past and a Step Down to the Future

Chapter 12

Food for Thought

Chapter 13

Through the

Magic Tunnel

Chapter 14

What’s in a Name?

Chapter 15

Los Llanos de Aridane

Chapter 16

Going Bananas

Chapter 17

German as she is

Spoke and Wrote

Chapter 18

A Chapter of Mysteries

Chapter 19

Hidden La Palma

Chapter 20

More Unanswered Questions

Chapter 21

Feeling curious and

the effects of brandy

Chapter 22

Much ado

about Nothing

Chapter 23

Much Ado

About Muchachos

Chapter 24

Caught in the Act

Chapter 25

Getting it

Wrong Again

Chapter 26

Seeing Stars

Chapter 27

Concerning Mr O’Daley, Señor Salazar and others

Chapter 28

Concerning dogs,

dwarfs and birds

Chapter 29

A Strange Encounter

Chapter 30

An Alternative Ending

Chapter 31

Eating Out and

Sweating it Out

Chapter 32

Game for a Laugh

Chapter 33

Cheesed off

Chapter 34

Making an Impression

Chapter 35

Going to Pot

Chapter 36

Scenes from a

Rural Idyll

Chapter 37

A Scene of

Domestic Strife

Chapter 38

A Flight I

don’t Fancy

About the author

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Chapter 1

Setting Off on

the Wrong Foot

It’s only twenty minutes, says Duncan as he waves us goodbye. He has even provided me with a small-scale map, courtesy of his computer. It looks simple enough. Under the motorway, turn left, turn right and our hotel should be on the left.

We are flying from Manchester this time and have called in on our friends, Duncan and Brenda, whom we had met on the Caribbean cruise on our silver wedding. They have fed us and wined us and we’ve had a chance to catch up. Their daughter, Rachel, who had been on the cruise with us, has a family now - a baby and two massive dogs, not to mention a husband who has recently given up his job, and who is studying to be something else. Likewise Rachel – she has given up her job and is studying to be something else too. With no income coming in, and all those fees to pay, you would wonder what possessed them to have two enormous dogs with appetites to match. A baby is different. Sometimes they come along unplanned, especially if no-one tells you what causes them. But dogs don’t just suddenly appear like birds in the Carpenters’ song - they must have consciously and deliberately decided to have these massive brutes.

I had met Rachel’s husband once before, before they were encumbered with their family, but Iona hasn’t. It must have been one of the rare times when I slipped the leash and headed off on my own somewhere, but I can’t remember where or when now. What I do remember was Duncan and Brenda pulling out all the stops and inviting the whole family to meet the Scottish exhibit.

Then, as now, there were photographs on the dining room wall and, like the Duke in Browning’s poem, Duncan gave me a guided introductory tour of the family before they descended in the flesh. I paused before a black and white graduation photograph of Duncan, taken a long time ago, in the days when colour photography was prohibitively expensive. No explanation was necessary for this, but I felt it incumbent to express some remark of some kind, since I had lavished so much praise and interest in the others and to remain silent would be to imply some sort of criticism. But I had exhausted my bank of polite phrases and however desperately I racked my brains, I could think of nothing to say.

You’ve improved, I told him at last, hoping from the levity of my tone he would accept it as a compliment and not, at a stroke, undo what I hoped up until now had been an Oscar-winning performance in charm and urbanity, covering up what my wife Iona describes as a natural boorishness, part and parcel of which is a startling propensity to display foot-in-mouth disease.

Duncan doesn’t seem to have held it against me though as we are here now. But going back to that earlier occasion, I remember how quiet and shy Rachel’s intended, as he was at that time, was. What is his name again? Even at this second visit, I haven’t taken it in. Maybe it hasn’t even been mentioned; he’s just been referred to as Rachel’s husband. But what I do remember is how Rachel told me how she had met What’s-his-name.

I think you should marry a Christian, don’t you? Too surprised to say anything, I said nothing and she took my non-response for assent. So I advertised in a Christian magazine.

So it was as simple and as easy as that. They say it pays to advertise.

I am disappointed the family has not been called into service again but I know that Natasha, Rachel’s comely sister, is now in the south of England somewhere and I’m not surprised that Rachel and What’s-his-name have not been recalled. They probably couldn’t get a dog-sitter.

So where’s your next holiday? asks Iona.

We’re going to Butlins, says Brenda.

Yes, adds Duncan, even before the surprise has time to register on my face. It’s their slack time, so we get a cheap rate. We go every year.

Ah, I see, I nod in understanding though I do anything but. It doesn’t sound like the sort of holiday I would expect them to take. Like us, they have travelled far and wide since we first met, as their postcards - our normal way of communicating - have testified.

Our church. That’s where we have our annual convention. There are some really good speakers. Some people call us the happy-clappy crowd.

Oh, my God! That is what I would call them. It doesn’t make them bad people, but it is not my idea of a good time. This religious revelation comes as news to me - I had not had a scintilla of suspicion about this aspect to their characters before now, not on the cruise, nor the last time, though now Rachel’s amazing modus operandi of procuring a husband seems to make a little more sense. Since they are of this persuasion, I wonder why they had anything to do with me since I am such a heathen. I am still in shock and as the conversation turns to matters spiritual, whilst I remain speechless, I am glad that Iona can say things like: in our church and our minister and if they want to make the inference that by our that that includes me, well so much the better.

As we leave, I glance at their BMW in the drive. I was right. I had taken it in a subliminal sort of way when we arrived: they have the sign of the fish. I should have read the sign. My son has a similar fish on the back of his Fiesta, only his says Darwin inside the fish shape and which has stumpy little legs, so it looks like some sort of primeval amphibian. As they wave us goodbye, I am glad he hadn’t persuaded me to get one. After all their kindness and hospitality, it would have been like blowing a raspberry at them.

Two hours later, we still have not found the hotel. It had been light when we set off but we have been going round in circles so long it is dark but now, finally, we think we are on the right route at last. It is not Iona the Navigator’s fault: the directions are totally inadequate, even with Duncan’s map, which doesn’t help at all. Talk about Greater Manchester! Well, we have seen the greater part of it, that’s for sure.

When we tell the receptionist about the difficulty in finding the place, (even parking the car they made difficult) he just grins and says we are not the first and we will not be the last. He is right about that, especially if they don’t amend their totally inadequate directions, but at this precise moment, I am not prepared to make an issue out of it. What good would it be to argue the toss with him – he is not going to change anything; he looks as if he has just started shaving for a start. After the stress of this journey, I am just relieved our Internet booking is all right as he fishes up our reservation from below the desk. It is my age I suppose. Somehow, I don’t feel quite confident that it is going to be all right unless I have spoken to a person, even if the person might turn out to be an idiot.

We are given a piece of paper to put on the dashboard to identify our car as a bona fide resident of the car park and then he hits me with the depressing news that our bus to the airport will be at 6:30 am.

When I get back, Iona is in the bathroom, preparing for bed. After all the stress I have endured trying to find this place, my throat feels as parched as a desert. I need a beer to slake my thirst. Fortunately, I have had the foresight to pack a couple and take the chance to open one and switch on the news whilst Iona is not in the room. She has an aversion to TVs in bedrooms. This is our bedroom, but given our late arrival and early start tomorrow, we are not going to see very much of it. Nor am I going to see much of the news either. Iona has finished her ablutions.

What’s that doing on? I’m tired and you’ve got to get up early.

That may be true but the real truth is she is more than just a bit irritated at the poor directions or her inability to make sense of them as she prides herself as being a bit of a navigator and doesn’t like to be defeated by some stupid map.

Don’t I know it!

As she knows perfectly well, getting up in the morning is not one of my skills. I only put it on whilst you were in the pabby, so I didn’t hear you tinkle, and I switch off the offending instrument with my free hand, but typically, it is the other hand that she notices.

What’s that? she asks in a tone enough to freeze the contents of the arm, sinister. If only we hadn’t wasted hours going round in circles, she would not have objected to me having a leisurely beer, or even two, but not one, not now, since she sees it as a procrastination before the all-consuming purpose of sleeping.

I put on an expression of mock surprise, as if I were amazed at this sudden manifestation in my fist, like some beneficent bestowal from the gods. I am about to open my mouth to say something witty, but I don’t get the chance.

Don’t bother, she says. Hurry up! I want to get to bed.

Yes, dear, I say with exaggerated meekness and trot off into the bathroom, head bowed in a humble fashion before she has a chance to throw a retort - or anything else, more fatal, such as a look - in my direction.

Chapter 2

An Early Start

The soap in the bathroom is a full-sized cake that would last a family a month, never mind a couple a single night. That goes in the statutory shower cap, which goes in my toilet bag. I always take the soap – after all, they will just throw it out anyway and I hate waste. Sometimes I get the idea that I am single-handedly saving the planet whilst the unconverted accuse me of being mean. But leaving that aside, we probably won’t have any soap in our cottage somewhere in the countryside of La Palma, so I may as well liberate it.

And talking of waste, as I let my shaving water spiral down the sink, I won’t be taking the plug from this washbasin, not that I ever do, but it looks like some people might, for this plug is anchored not only to a chain, but a retractable chain. I am not casting any aspersions, but there was a great shortage of them in Poland last time I was there, admittedly twenty years and more ago when it was under the Communist heel.

How fascinating! I, who have no technical expertise whatsoever, who finds most of it a mystery and a miracle, find this utterly enthralling. Perhaps it appeals to my sense of laziness. Imagine going to all that trouble to invent a gadget to save you the trouble of stowing the plug out of the way. Ping! Ping! It makes a satisfactory sound to announce that it is safely nestled back in its little round hole. And the amazing thing is, like a support ship docking with the space lab, it never misses, no matter how many times I try it.

What are you doing in there, for heaven’s sake?

It is La Belle Dame Sans Merci getting worried we are going to miss the complimentary bus to the airport. She’s like that. She likes to be in plenty of time for everything. Far too much time. I hate hanging about waiting but I certainly don’t want to have to pay for a taxi to the airport, thank you very much, so I give the plug one last try and having practically drip-dried, and thus having conserved vital energy at this low-energy time in the morning when the body is on autopilot, emerge damply, swaddled in a fluffy white towel, to put on my clothes.

We have no time for breakfast. In any case, it is so horrendously early, even the early birds, who work in the restaurant, have not clocked on yet. Iona, anxious, has gone on ahead. I haul my luggage to the lift some minutes later. There is only one. I think we are on the 13th storey. Someone with my luck would be put there. The lift stops. It is already occupied by a couple with a small kid in a pushchair. I ask them if they are going up or down as it is going to be a bit crowded in there with all our luggage, not to mention their pushchair, which is taking up more room than Dawn French, and a lot busier than you would reasonably expect at this ungodly time, before dawn.

Up, they say in unison as if they had rehearsed it, apart from the kid who just girns. I don’t blame it at this time in the morning.

I give up the lift to them. It seems to take forever before it comes back again. Even I am beginning to get worried that I will miss the bus. And when I land in the foyer, the first people I see, almost predictably, is the couple with the kid in the pushchair, then Iona, who, as usual, is my German wife, Frau Ning, at my tardiness.

What were you doing? she says, controlling her irritation in this crowded place. There is safety in numbers.

Problem with the lift.

Apparently my would-be companions did not like the look of me, maybe because of the big bags under my eyes, or maybe just because of the size of my baggage, but how did they know I was going down too and had the presence of mind to lie? The arrows above the door would have told me, had I had the presence of mind – not to mention the energy. It is still too early in the morning for my brain to be functioning properly, but theirs was obviously in top gear.

In spite of this delay, there is still plenty of time to hang about wasting time until a lean man in his sixties appears. There is something about him that tells us this is our driver. Who else would be up at this ungodly hour without good reason? Or maybe I have come to this conclusion because it has something to do with the fact there is a big bus dimly visible through the early-morning murk where there had not been one a few moments before.

I am not aware of him speaking, let alone making any announcement, just the people who had been waiting in the foyer, gravitating towards the exit. Emulating my fellow travellers, I pick up, in the passing, a complimentary newspaper from a rapidly diminishing pile on a table. The early bird may catch the worm but it is the early riser who gets the printed word. By the time we have all helped ourselves, there will nothing left for the lie-a-beds and should they desperately want to read a paper, they will have to buy one for themselves, a later edition, full of doom and gloom as usual. But perhaps this early edition will be full of good news for a change, since it was free and the best things in life are free - or so they tell us.

We spend more time waiting in the bus before we drive off, precious time I could have spent in bed, not that I would have slept anyway, even although I have had a bad night, a not unusual phenomenon for me, especially in a strange bed and with a pillow Moses might have carved the Ten Commandments on. But at last, the driver boards and stuffs three assorted newspapers into a briefcase. One of the perks of the job, perhaps the only, unless you actually enjoy getting up at the crack of dawn as I am told some peculiar people do. Some job! You would have to go to your bed early so you could get up early, and you couldn’t spend the evening quaffing pints either because you have to drive the next day. I suppose he spends the evening reading his free newspapers. No wonder he takes three.

The radio is playing cheery music, not too loudly, (though silence would have been preferable) - only it soon becomes apparent it is not the radio, but a tape that the driver has compiled principally for his own delectation, but selflessly and altruistically, for the benefit of the general public. Or he does it because he can, because that is the power he has. It is not a bad tape – music mainly from the Sixties, to match his age, I suppose, which shows he is of good taste, but why on earth has he included I’ll be your long-haired lover from Liverpool in his selection? It is enough to make you get up and walk off the bus to get away from it and I could have missed it because we have only moved a few hundred yards to take on passengers from the sister hotel.

On they come in a seemingly endless stream: tattoos, ear-ringed men with heads shaved to the wood, scary women and, in case we hadn’t noticed their arrival, talking to each other loudly and cheerily, and regrettably, with unmistakeably Scottish accents. As they squeeze past me on their way up the aisle, I have time to notice that one tattooed arm almost inevitably has a ghetto blaster as an appendage to a fist which has HATE inscribed across the knuckles. Normally this would arouse in me a sense of panic that, knowing my luck, these are destined to be my next-door neighbours in our apartment. I have had some undesirable neighbours in the past but out of all the undesirables I have ever met, this lot is positively the worst. While they may not be my ideal travelling companions, they nevertheless have come all the way from Scotland, like us.

You would think there would be enough Scots to fill a plane from Glasgow, I bemoan to Iona. It is always a sore point with me, that as often as not, we have to travel to England before we can get to somewhere other than Spain, the Balearics or the Algarve.

Iona gives me a funny look. Don’t be so paranoid. They are probably not even going to La Palma.

Of course! How stupid of me! It just goes to show that if my brain is still in neutral, then hers is not, for she has followed my train of thought perfectly. She can read me like a book, so I don’t know why she bothers to pack one when she could just have me. Just because they are on this bus doesn’t mean we’ll be on the same plane – they could be heading for any number of destinations.

Because of people like them, after horrendous encounters with noisy, ghetto-blasting neighbours on our last two holidays, and nervous of neighbours on other package holidays, we have elected to go to a cottage in the country, away from everyone. They will be someone else’s next-door neighbour and good luck to them, but they will definitely not be mine. So why am I worrying? Force of habit, that’s all.

At the airport, we have breakfast at Garfunkels. Although there are plenty of empty seats, we have to wait to be seated, as the sign commands.

Smoking or non smoking?

Non smoking. (Most definitely.)

Sit where you like.

We sit at a table for two near the roped-off entrance.

So you can make a quick escape and not pay me, jokes the waiter. Unless I am much mistaken, he is Greek. We study the menu. We’ll have croissants and I will have a regular coffee even although I am not a coffee addict, because it is what the Americans call bottomless and I like value for money. Iona is having a Mocha, although she is a coffee addict and will only get one cup.

A few minutes later, the waiter comes back. The croissants are finished, more are being baked; do we want to wait twenty minutes until they are ready? It is only 7:30 in the morning for God’s sake! For how long have they been serving croissants? Half the country is still in bed. We have the time to squander but when Iona decides she wants food, she means she wants it now, this minute, not in twenty of them. We have muffins instead.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci is not amused. There is a muffin place on the floor below but it was only a takeaway so she forsook it in favour of coffee and a seat. If she had wanted muffins she would have got them from there. These muffins do not match up apparently.

More customers arrive.

Smoking or non smoking?

Smoking.

Sit where you like.

Eh? Fortunately they do not sit near us.

When I have finished my coffee, and am ready for my second, there is no sign of the waiter. I wait for him to reappear, my eye fixed on a door that says Staff Only at the far end of the room. Ah here he is now! But it was only a guest appearance as he disappears through the door again faster than a mirage. Iona is tired of waiting, which makes two of us.

I didn’t realise this was a self-service place, I mutter darkly.

What do you mean? It’s not.

Well the customers seem to do all the bloody waiting!

Oh, I’m not staying here any longer! announces La Belle Dame Sans Merci in a sudden eruption of impatience. I wonder if it was something I said.

She gives me a £10 note so I can settle the bill. She says she is going to the toilet but I bet she is off in search of the perfect muffin as well. I go in search of a second coffee, not so much because I need it, but on a point of principle because I have paid for it, and waited for it and having waited so long for it, I’m damned if I am going to give up now. I can see where it is, on the counter at the far end of the room, near the forbidden door. But is it forbidden to serve oneself? I hover like a bee over a delectable-looking flower. Since there is no-one to serve me, am I not within my rights to serve myself?

But although it was more than thirty years ago, that image I have, in Athens, of two Greek motorists who, having had a minor collision, had a major bust up and it was so terrible to see, I have never forgotten it. And our Greek waiter, though he appears amiable enough, might be aroused to similar heights of passion at catching someone touching his equipment, doing him out of a job as he might see it, since by now I am a fully qualified waiter myself. I am a wimp, so I just stand about, like an idiot, hoping that something might just happen and like Hamlet, I won’t have to act, like Roger Moore. Maybe I should just leave. After all, I am in the perfect position to do just that and had our waiter practically not half-suggested that himself? And I couldn’t give tuppence whether I had another cup of coffee anyway.

Perhaps it was mind reading, or perhaps it was merely coincidence, but the door swings open and here he is now, as unflustered and as amiable as ever.

Still here! he grins. Was that a hint?

What could he have been doing in there all this time unless it was baking croissants? I express my request for more coffee and just in case he had forgotten, indicate where I am sitting.

As he arrives with the coffee, to save time, I ask for the bill. At the rate of service in here, I might have to take flight before it arrived in order not to miss my own.

£7:55! That can’t be right, can it? For three cups of coffee and two little muffins, not like those monsters downstairs! You can buy a meal in my favourite Indian for that and you don’t need breakfast the next day either. I’m hungry already. I leave him a tip, just to round it up and because he has been so helpful.

After all, it was scarcely his fault I didn’t act on his advice. He had warned me after all.

Chapter 3

A Terrible Responsibility

At the check-in, the pretty young Asian girl looks at our documents and her brown, almond eyes seem to have eyes only for me as she asks, without a hint of embarrassment: Are you able-bodied?

Startled by her forthrightness, as I look into her eyes, I fall into their soft liquid warmth - and in love. My mouth goes suddenly dry and my knees seem to melt. Did I hear her correctly or am I dreaming? Once upon a time, I may have hoped that she was making me an offer, but at my age I know that even in my dreams, I must be away with the fairies if I thought she would be remotely interested in me. Besides, she’s talking to both of us. So, if she is not consumed with mad, passionate lust for my body, just why is she asking us this then?

Yes? I answer for both of us.

Right. I’m putting you by an exit door, at no extra charge.

She says it phlegmatically enough, but for her it is probably an almost every day occurrence, whilst for me it is like winning the lottery. I know what it means – extra legroom, for free, even for me, with short legs anyway, just because I happened to arrive at the desk at precisely the right moment. I wish I were going on a longer flight, longer than this already long enough four-hour one. Things like this do not normally happen to me. It must be an omen. This is going to be an especially good holiday. We know we will have no noisy neighbours; we had taken that precaution ourselves. Other things we can’t control, like the weather, will favour us; the sun will shine upon us, and all that we do. But it would anyway. We are going to the Canaries, with an all-year-round ambient temperature of 70º F with ten hours of sunshine a day, guaranteed. It must mean that something else good, something unexpected, is going to happen.

The funny thing is she did not ask if we were able-minded. On the plane, the stewardess instructs us to study the card in front of us and the signs attached to the door. It is a terrible responsibility. In the case of an emergency, I have to do certain manoeuvres with the door. If I understand the diagrams properly, I have to twist the handle in a certain direction and then throw the door away, outside, away from the aircraft, then I must take off my stilettos before I leap outside - well, if we are landing in water. Good chance of that, going to the Canaries. Where am I going to get a pair of stilettos from though?

The door weighs five kilos apparently, two bags of sugar and a bit. Even a weakling like me could do that! In fact, I can’t help thinking, they are pretty lucky to have me in this seat, with a degree in English and enough nous to be able to understand these diagrams, though I admit I do find those that come with flat-pack furniture rather challenging. I