Fridays walk was up in the National Park walking through the forest which is either laurel or heath trees. Both are completely new to us and therefore interesting.
The laurel trees only grow about 15ft high, are quite densely packed together and covered in lichen. It would be a great place to take small children and frighten them as it is very spooky, a little higher up the mountain the laurel gives way to heath trees which are more slender but still create a dark space underneath.
For the first time on our walks we met other walkers most of whom were German. One even had the audacity to correct our pronunciation of “hola”, a German correcting an Englishman's use of a Spanish word, very embarrassing, I was tempted to mention the war.
Almost all the tourists are German, up until recently I don’t think they had to have the covid tests to visit the Canaries Island but the Government are now insisting that even people from Spain have to have a test less than 72 hours before arriving which will limit the number of people coming back for Christmas.
Even better the German Government are banning Germans from coming to the Canaries from Sunday which, we hope, means we won't have any difficulty finding somewhere to stay after Christmas.
As retired landlords of self catering properties we have felt very sorry for the owner of the house we have been renting.
On Wednesday I gave Gill permission to cook dinner rather than eat out as I was concerned she might forget how to do it, we then discovered the oven did not work so let the owner know. Next day her partner spent several hours fitting a new oven which presumably he had to go and purchase first thing. On Friday the gas boiler failed and a plumber had to quickly replace it. Over our 18 years in the Porch House we had perhaps one such incident a year, to have two in a week is really bad luck and all the income from our rent has gone, both the oven and the boiler were quite new so hardly the owners fault.
I don’t suppose we will eat dinner in again, restaurants in the town are very good value, the cost of our food from the supermarket was 23€, a meal out costs between 40€ and 50€. Goat features on most menus both as a meat course and as cheese although the best cheese we have found so far comes from cows in Germany.