Sandwiches in the Sun

Sandwiches in the sun
 As I reach in the Hiperdino supermarket carrier bag for another sneaky bit of my cheese and red pepper sandwich, I wonder again at the improbability of it all. How did I get to be here, sitting on the salubrious sun terrace of a five star hotel spa in the warm sunshine and reflecting on my recent change of circumstances between mouthfuls of a picnic, smuggled in to save the 20 euros I would have been charged at the pool bar.
 Two years ago today I did it; I am one of the daring minority of the 28% of UK inhabitants, who are seriously considering upping their old, soggy sticks and swapping them for the palm trees and sunshine of warmer and more tranquil climes, who has actually made the move.
 Not yet having a place of our own, my wife Sue and I started off as guests of the couple we were to be working with in the church. They were living at Betel, a beautiful old, in parts dilapidated, finch or farmhouse standing quietly on a high plane of lava at the epicentre of this volcanic island.
 Its thick stone walls were built to keep out the blistering midday heat of the sun, which beats relentlessly down with the same strength as it does on the sandy wastes of the African continent, less than a day’s flight to the east for the flocks of swallows that occasionally arrive here, blown off their yearly northward course towards our erstwhile home back in the UK. By day the harsh brightness of the sun bounces off the pristinely whitewashed walls, while at night the pitch black sky spreads above it like a giant vacuous dome, sprinkled with myriads of sparkling pin pricks which multiply by the million as the human eye accustoms itself to the clear, deep darkness, untouched by the pollution of light from street lamps.
 We had arrived in the middle of March, just in time for warm spring days that average 24º right until the coming of summer, in July. The warmth of the Lanzarote welcome was completed by our generous and genial hosts, Mark and Julie Austin. Mark and Julie complement one another superbly. Julie's quiet spirituality draws like a brightly flickering candle, while Mark effuses enthusiasm and boisterous banter. She would conjure up the most aromatic and succulent cooking, while only he had the strength and skill to crank up the cantankerous old diesel powered generator, which was the main source of the house’s electricity.
 You could say we had all the mod cons, but not always in the desired quantity. On an average day there was usually enough electricity to power a hair dryer for two hours, and sometimes longer. We had water on tap as long as there was power to run the pump, and piping hot water would run as long as the temperamental gas cylinder allowed.
 There was even “central heating”! Central heating? Was that really necessary? Well, those thick stone walls that maintained a comfortable coolness during the peak of the summer, turned the place into a fridge once the sun had gone down outside the hottest months. The “central” heating came courtesy of a free-standing gas fire, parked hopefully in the centre of the cavernous 30 ft by 20 ft living room with its crumbling lofty ceiling, and whose supply would splutter disappointingly to exhaustion at all too frequent intervals.
 In fact, I can honestly say I’ve never been so cold in my life before. I remember vividly, and with a shiver, the nights that the heater failed. At first we would augment our jumpers and coats with a blanket, fetched hurriedly from our bedroom on the opposite side of the courtyard. Soon we’d return for a second, and not long after that we’d be wrapped up in bed. There was just nowhere else to go to escape the bitter, penetrating chill.
 Despite its basic drawbacks, we still remember the old place with fondness. The beautiful architecture, so typically Canarian with carefully crafted black volcanic stone blocks picked out against the smooth white walls, the sprawling, feathery canopy of the pepper tree half filling the space where we parked our cars outside the solid rustic wooden front door, the bright red flowers and pea green foliage of the “crown of thorns” shrubs that ran the length of the low white retaining wall, which separated the parking from the “garden”.
 The “garden” was a small area of plants sitting proudly on a bed of picon, the black volcanic grit that’s used everywhere here as a gravely mulch to help retain the heavy dews upon which the local plant life relies.
 Beyond that stood a long row of netted, wood-framed housing, which reminded me of the constructions in which my dad used to grow gooseberries when I was a child. However, the inhabitants of these particular constructions were good for neither a crumble pudding nor a vegetarian supper. Neither were they good for our sleep, because living no more than 40 feet from the shutters and ironwork that constituted our creaky bedroom windows, was a den of fighting cockerels that you could set your alarm clock by – that is, if you were a baker and wanted to rise early every morning, several hours before the sun had even thought of it.
 Yes, although the barbaric practice of bull fighting has long been outlawed in the Canaries, the “sport” of pitching one pugnacious cockerel against another is still en vigor as they say here, still vigorously pursued. And one of its proudest proponents is the ageing, shambling, but still tall and strong, landlord of Betel, Don Arturo.
 He was a loveable old rogue really, our dueño. Always friendly with a gentle smile and a gruff chuckle, his customary reply to the Spanish greeting “Hola Don Arturo, ¿cómo estás?” was that he was struggling on in the “battle of life”, as he called it. I stop for a second and wonder if that was a subliminal reference to his battling livestock.
 The only time he reprimanded me he was very straightforward and not in the least disrespectful. The problem was, since Betel was situated bang in the middle of nowhere, that access by motorised vehicle was, to put it bluntly, extremely bumpy. The unmade “driveway” had somehow become rutted into a regular pattern, reminiscent of the rivulets that form in the sand on Bournemouth beach when the tide recedes. My mind wanders back to those warm afternoons in the late summer and the knobbly feeling underfoot as one paddles along the seashore over the hard sodden mass of sand.
 In order to reduce the cacophony of rattling bones, chassis and exhaust and cut down the anxiety that any of these might disintegrate at any moment, the driver had two options: take it really, really slowly or get up some steam and try and skim over the top of the bone shaking bumps. I usually took the first option, counselling myself philosophically that it was a simple reminder of the general slow pace of life in Lanzarote. However, one day, when time was unusually pressing, I boldly went for the speedy approach. Unfortunately the damp, forgiving nature of Bournemouth sand contrasts markedly with the dry, dusty hardness of Lanzarote dirt tracks. Accordingly I arrived with extraordinary rapidity at the gateway of Betel and was startled to see Don Arturo, consternated, but still calm. As I followed his simple request to turn round and behold the cloud of dust that accompanied my trail, it was enough to shame me into future compliance with the request to take it more gently.