Sunday, 16th November, 2025
Gorgeous day all round. Up early and political interview programmes before setting off for a longish walk along the coast for 6 miles. My feet were sore at the end of that. My fellow traveller was skipping because she had bought a new sun-dress en route. I had allowed it because I beat the vendor down from an exorbitant €25.00/£22.0 to €20.00/£17.60. I could almost afford that.
I sat outside the shop watching a mad English man taking his life into his hands in peril over the sea. I don’t think you would do it, Dear Reader, even if you could manage lift off. I certainly wouldn’t.
I staggered back through a hot sunshine of 27C/81F, sweating profusely and in need of a rest. I opened an ice cold bottle of White Rioja to drink with cheese and biscuits for Lunch along with the Scotland v Argentina Rugby match. The UK’s tax on wine is quite disgraceful. This bottle of wine costs me just €3.50/£3.10. In UK, it would cost me double that at least.
Anyway, moving on to better things. The weather is delightful and the nature around here is wonderful. I love plants and trees. I love to see plants I can’t grow in UK. The climate here is so flat and benign with no massive highs and, more importantly, no lows that most things do well.
Our home in Greece was inundated with Oleanders. They were so common, we almost considered them weeds. Greeks did plant them as hedges but they needed minimal attention. In fact, a neighbour on the South Coast now is growing them successfully.
Then I came across this gorgeous shrub which Google Lens told me is a Thevetia Peruviana which I later found is a South American, yellow Oleander.
I was shocked to find that a tree growing outside my apartment is actually a Papaya Tree. Never seen one before and only saw this one when a papaya fell and nearly hit me on the head.
I can see the Headline in the Daily Fail – British Tourist Killed by Papaya on Tenerife. Anyway, Dear Reader, you’ll be relieved to know that I lived to eat it.
Monday, 17th November, 2025
The start of week 3 here is …. blue sky, strong sunshine and 24C/75F. Time is passing though – as Bum-Face will tell you. He is 22 today. Can you imagine it, Dear Reader – only being 22! So many years of joy, pain and suffering to come. All that living. He might even learn what Palindromic means before he’s 101.
Anyway, Happy Birthday, Daniel. Hope Florida is treating you well and that you graduate soon. I can still picture your chubby cheeks 22 years ago.
I can still picture this little band of waifs and strays from 1971. I can see them all so clearly 54 years on – here on an Art Trip to London. They look arty don’t they? It was posted on Social Media yesterday by some nostalgic soul – Christine Barnes.
So that’s 22 years ago and 54 years ago remembered. Now a lovely photo for me of a brand new school built 127 years ago. No, I wasn’t there but I was headteacher of it 90 years later. Topical events at the time of its opening include the first fatal UK car accident, Harrods department store in Knightsbridge installed the first escalator and the opening of the Tate Gallery.
The building wasn’t quite as clean then but, as a testament to the quality of its building, all the windows, all the doors, external and internal, all the built in book cases, the parquet floor, the railings – everything was the original from almost a century past. When we finally vacated the building and it was demolished, we allowed members of staff to remove them for use at home. I took my huge, oak Office door which became the back door of my then home in the country.
In past trips to Tenerife, we have tended to rent properties near Siam Mall – a shopping centre with reasonable facilities. This time, we are about 25 mins walk away so, in keeping with my tradition of always going back to touch my past, we are walking there today just for the memory.
Tuesday, 18th November, 2025
Was woken up in the middle of the night by an alarm on my phone warning me that the temperature in the Gym at home had fallen dangerously low for the delicate equipment. I have a thermostatic wall radiator but it is basically a single skinned garage and is difficult to heat adequately. We’ve had the roof insulated but didn’t go on to do the walls so it always will present some problems.
I don’t like to allow the temperature to fall below 7C/45F at any time and I have a wifi-controlled thermometer which alerts me of that. I then have a wifi-controlled backup radiator which I can activate to give the room a boost. That’s what I was doing at 4.00 am this morning.
Our insurance policy says that the house should be kept at a minimum of 15C/57F for safety of services. That is what both upstairs and downstairs zones are set for. We have wifi controls which allow us to monitor and intervene if necessary from anywhere in the world but it seems to be fairly self regulating.
It all really appeals to my sense of control of the world around me. I love it.
The list here which only shows the first list of rooms, doesn’t refer to individual heating. They are controlling the lighting and the heating and cooling of the Gym. You can’t see it on this first page but I have a fan next to my seat in my Office. Although it is easier just to reach out and switch it on/off manually, I have to use the control on my phone to get full satisfaction.
Outside here this morning, it is a cool 22C/70F. In my village on the South Coast of England, it is just 5C/41F and in the North of England, my friends from Leeds and Rochdale inform me, the temperature is an unpleasant 3C/37F with light, wet snow falling. Decisions, Decisions!
Anyway, enough of that. After being woken by the heating alarm, I listened to a political podcast about the Labour government’s new immigration policy. It fills me with sadness and sheer embarrassment. A sense of shame that a Labour Government, a Labour Government could stoop so low, so low as to find the lowest common denominator. It is one of the most disgraceful things I have heard in all my time associated with them.
To see a South Asian Home Secretary pulling up the drawbridge behind her as so many immigrants here would like to do to protect their own positions is utterly distasteful and disgraceful. You would think finding her policy being applauded by Tommy Robinson and supported by the Tories and Reform would give her pause for thought but the Overton Window pendulum has swung dangerously to the Right and deporting long established migrant families at a whim now seems acceptable. At this rate, I will be voting Green next time.
Wednesday, 19th November, 2025
Another gorgeous morning. The first walk of the day will be with a purpose. Shopping for food and wine at the local – couple of kilometres away – Mercadona.
It is a fascinating experience. Quality is quite good. Some things like wine and fresh orange juice are cheaper while meat and fish are a bit more expensive. Over all, it is very similar bill compared with Sainsburys. We think we are buying top quality sides of fresh salmon at home but I think the salmon we are buying here is slightly better if anything.
Of course, I don’t really drink but the wine is cheap and really good. It encourages me to drink too much – obviously drowning my sorrows, Dear Reader. At the moment (not exactly this moment because it is 9.30 am) I am enjoying this red wine at the enormous cost of €3.50/£3.10. It is a simple, soft, tasty Tempranillo wine which I can drink with fish or meat or cheese unfortunately.
Still, no wine until two, long walks and a swim have been completed so that is the discipline for the day. Actually, walking here is delightful. It is cold this morning back home at just 5C/41F. I think I would be pushing it to go out in shorts and tee shirt today. Snow in the North is unlikely to be seen on the South Coast but neither would we be seeing temperatures of 25C/77F which prevail in Tenerife.
Thursday, 20th November, 2025
While we were working, Pay Day was the 20th of the month. This morning it is State Pension day. There is something quite uncomfortably ironic about waking up in the warmth and sunshine of the Canary Islands to find someone has put money into our Bank Account knowing I have left fellow citizens struggling to make ends meet back in UK. Particularly at the moment with arctic air covering UK, keeping warm and affording to do it could be a matter of life and death. I know some little, old, wrinkly people who will have the heating on all day.
I received this photo from a girl in North Yorkshire first thing this morning. She is clothed in multiple layers and keeping her log burners going to stay warm. It sounds hard work to me. Life should not be so challenging particularly as we get older.
We need and I am lucky enough to be able to afford not only to heat my home and escape to the sunshine but eat good food which is so important in maintaining health. I was thinking about exactly that this morning when I read an article in The Times. When I was young in the immediate post war decade, things like chicken and fresh salmon were considered luxuries. Apparently, Britons ate the equivalent of just one single, small fillet of salmon a year. Of course, then it was all caught wild and was much less readily available.
These days, I eat roast salmon twice a week. A large side of salmon will provide 4 meals for two people and cost about £26.00 per kilo which makes each meal for two cost about £6.50 – amazingly good value. It is almost always farmed salmon which we buy from a specialist supplier. Because it is farmed, there is a continual and consistent supply. Usually, it comes from Scotland.
Having said yesterday that I thought our Tenerife supermarket was more expensive for fish, I now know I was wrong. The side of really delicious salmon we bought yesterday to be eaten with asparagus and green beans is Norwegian and cost just €21.00/£18.50 per kilo. I couldn’t live in Tenerife permanently but it would certainly be cheaper. It isn’t cold enough to need heating and not so oppressively hot as to need air conditioning very often.
The salmon I ate yesterday is protein which the body converts to maintain my muscles. Body building is even more important at my age. That’s why I am now going out for a long walk to assist that protein in maintaining my muscle strength. Must put my sun cream on first!
Friday, 21st November, 2025
A lovely sunny and warm Friday morning. Blue sky with a touch of high and fleecy white cloud. Going to be a good day. At 8.30 am, it is 22C/70F here. At home on the South Coast it is only 3C/37F which has alerted me to turn the Gym heating on. In Greater Manchester, it is currently a bitter -3C/27F. That’s why they all wear woolly vests. Do you remember vests, Dear Reader. I haven’t worn one since the 1960s. Of course, before central heating those sorts of garments were needed.
I suspect they’re never needed the here unless it was to absorb sweat in the Summer. Not really sure they actually have a Summer as such here either. November is their busiest month. There is something rather incongruous about their rush to put up Christmas lights in November to attract people out at night when they have spent the day walking down subtropical avenues like this.
I find the former tawdry and the latter delightful. I must admit, I have never seen Blackpool Lights but I suspect they feel more ‘right’ in Winter weather.
Saturday, 22nd November, 2025
Slightly cooler morning – only 23C/73F but I’m pleased to see things are warming up in UK again which is nice. Just coming to the end of our 3rd week here with one more to go.
Gen Z is the digital generation which is generally considered to be born between 1997 – 2010 although this end stage is extended by some guides. In the UK, this generation started with the Blair Labour Government whereas the next generation – Alpha – is generally considered to have experienced the Covid Pandemic in part of its schooling. Apparently, Gen Z don’t even know what going out on the pull means and, when they are told, they are horrified. Them and me both!
We are all products of our Age. I am a child of the 1950s & 60s. My generation was breaking away from the wartime austerity of our parents and asserting liberty from the life controlling strictures of morality and religion. As such, we were at war with our parents’ generation and that is exactly as it should be. We Boomers (1946 – 64) were into sex and politics, smoking and drinking.
As you will probably know from Larkin’s Annus Mirabilis:
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) –
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.
Ultimately, we were into serious pursuit of education and careers, material wealth and financial stability. We bought houses, had children, became respectable. We eschewed the church and looked to spend the post-war peace dividend on enjoyment and travel.
Generation X – born 1965-1979 in the Labour Governments of Wilson and Callaghan – reacted to their Boomer parents’ generation’s commitment to Lifelong Careers by seeking more work life balance for themselves. Gap years, alternative lifestyles, working when they have to but chilling when they don’t. I meet them all the time now and they infuriate me. We have/had the most lovely electrician who would come out at the drop of a hat and do an excellent job and then forget to bill me. When I follow him up, I’m told he likes to ‘help the old people’. He’s in his late 40s himself. His kids are home-schooled. Now, he isn’t available at all because he’s too busy doing A Level Music at College and living an alternative lifestyle in a ‘camp in the country. What sort of Adult life is that?
At 6.00 am today, I was listening to two widely disparate generations coming together in the joy of political discussion. Lord Ken Clarke – 85 and born into the wartime generation known as the Silent Generation because they were expected to be seen and not heard. His wife died 10 years ago and, although he attends the House of Lords, he is a sad, lonely and as you can see from the photo a rather shambling old man. (Is that how we all go out?) The young man interviewing him is Lewis Godall former Sky and BBC Newsnight political correspondent but now one of the Newsagents Podcast. He is just 36, recently married and is a Millenial. When you have a shared interest, the generations melt away.
Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are the demographic cohort born roughly between 1981 and 1996, a group dominated by the Thatcher years that reached young adulthood around the turn of the millennium. This generation is defined by their upbringing in a digital world. They are criticised for being too in to their ‘screens’ and social media but largely by the older generations who struggle with the digital world and criticise what they are afraid of and argue that we should be encouraging paper book reading.
I just love Gen Z which would be my grandchildren if I’d had a child of my own. I don’t love them because I agree with them but because they make me laugh. I think I would have been a very indulgent Grandad. Gen Z don’t drink alcohol and they don’t have much sex. What the hell is wrong with them – I would be asking them? Two of life’s greatest pleasures and they really don’t indulge. They can’t afford alcohol and have nowhere to have sex privately apparently. I could advise them.
According to this, there are two things about Gen Z that really chime with me from the chart above. They both come from my time teaching. Tech Savvy – Have a question? Google it. I used to sell the internet to kids in the early stages by challenging them to ask me anything I couldn’t find an answer to within a minute. I never lost and they have grown up believing that the digital world means anything is possible. The other thing is attention span. I have a concentration endurance span that is so long, I can cut off the blood supply to my legs sitting working. According to this their attention span is just 8 seconds. We pandered to that in schools with multi-part lessons to keep them interested instead of pushing them to persevere. I always argued that we were doing them a disservice.
I’m going out on the pull now …. with a shopping trolley.