Week of 25th August, 2003

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Monday, 25th August

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Tuesday, 26th August

To the local hypermarket, Alcampo, today, for retail therapy. Alcampo is either affiliated to, or part of, the French Auchan chain, that we know of old from le shopping daytrips to France. There are a plethora of shops in the complex, plus the hypermarket, but there was nothing of interest to me - mostly women's clothing shops. Never mind, the family had fun. And I got a glimpse of the future - in one shop, Jane couldn't use her credit card, because she didn't have photo ID (she wasn't carrying her passport, and her driving licence is the old style, without photo) so I had to come to the rescue - my driving licence is the new style, with photo, and I had my passport as well. I suspected this would happen - de facto demands for extra ID when paying with plastic, even when not required de jure. I make no doubt this will become common in future.

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Wednesday, 27th August

A quiet day. I didn't budge out of the apartment until we went out for dinner in the evening.

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Thursday, 28th August

Today, we finally did Katy's trip to the Parque Nacional del Teide - which is the area surrounding the Mt. Teide volcano in the middle of the island. And getting there was the usual saga, made worse by the Spanish habit of putting up one signpost to the place you want to visit, and then no others until just before you arrive - if you arrive.

We came up out of Puerto Cruz towards the autopista del norte and I saw a sign - good. But was there another one? Nope. Nada, zilch. So just to make a decision I turned up a hill, in vagiely the right direction. Wrong. 20 miles in the wrong direction, and one sign pointing us back the way we'd come later, we ended driving up a hill that I swear was at least 1 in 2 (read: steep) This, at least, got us about 1000 metres up, which was a start.

Then I made a bad mistake - as if that wasn't bad enough. The next hill we wnt up led to about 10 miles of unmade roads inside the forest on the north side of Teide, the last of which was a genuine logging track that, eventually, decanted us onto the correct road, about 1500 metres up. Another 700 metres of height gain, and a visit to the El Portillo visitor centre later, we arrived at the Teleferico del Teide, a cable car system that makes the ascent to La Rambleta, a height gain of 1300 metres, in about 3 kilometres and 8 minutes. There was, of course, a long queue - about an hour's worth, in the blazing sun, with no shade. And at 2200 metres altitude, there's less air to absorb the UV - lots of sun jollop needed.

The Teleferico costs Euro20 per adult tourist (Euro10 for Tenerife residents - show ID for the discount) for that 8 minute ascent (and the return - although you can buy a single trip, useful if you've opted to walk. 6+ hours - up that 1300 metres height gain? Not me, brother)

At the top, the views are spectacular. You're well above the semi-permanent cloud deck, which looks like a sea of cotton wool, and is caused by the prevailing northerly winds hitting the mountain, and shedding their moisture as they rise. This is why northern Tenerife is much greener than the south - the rain doesn't make it over the top of Teide.

<views of cloud deck>

And that's all there is at the top - 3550 metres above sea level, and 170-odd metres below the peak, where the crater is, and which you cannot approach without a permit - issued free at an office in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. But you have to attend, in person, and they give you a piece of paper with the address once you've bought your ticket.You can get almost to the crater, without permit, but it's still a 170 metre climb, at around 11,000 feet. I passed.

<Mt. Teide peak>

The bowl visible in the cloud photos is the Amphitheatre de Las Canadas, which isn't directly volcanic, although Teide is a (dormant) volcano. The geologists say that, about 170,000 years ago, Tenerife was a single mountain (probably a shield volcano), without the depression that is now Las Canadas. As a result of a massive landslide, probably caused by ongoing vulcanism, the entire peak and (I think) north side of the island fell into the sea. The resulting depression was eventually filled by further eruptions, resulting in the bowl shape now called Las Canadas. Mt. Teide and the other volcanoes inside Las Canadas were formed by later activity.

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Friday, 29th August

The flight home today. But of course further shopping was required - back in the south, where we were last week.

So to get that in, before check-in at 1 p.m., we planned to leave at about 8 a.m. - and actually got away at about 9, although I had to remind Katy about the passage of time. Something along the lines of, "Katy, you do realise that this delay is eating directly into your shopping time". A couple of minutes later, Katy appeared, with a face that would curdle milk, to do her morning ablutions - everyone else was already washed, dressed and fed.

So we drove back to Playa de Las Americas, in the south-west, for shopping. I will confess to one extravagance - a new MiniDisc player, the Sony MZ-N510 NetMD, with USB connection to a computer. Which will be both more and less useful - the loading from a computer (fast - about 32x real speed) involves a process of "check-out" for copyright protection. What I really want, though, is to see if I can use this as a way to copy an existing MD.

Then we returned to the airport, surrendered the hire cars, and checked in for a mostly uneventful flight back to Landon, once again via Madrid.

Once we'd cleared Customs - a simple walk through the green "Nothing to Declare" - I left to collect the car. This involved a 'phone call to book a mini-cab, and then a wait until he arrived. Once back at work, I tried to start the car - and failed. Not enough juice in the battery, although the lights and central locking worked. A quick jump-start ( we always carry booster cables) fixed that, and I could collect everyone and drive home, where we unpacked, and crashed. It had ben a long day - 6.a.m. to midnight.

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Saturday, 30th August

While we were away, our neighbour (he who was charged with feeding the cats) 'phoned to say that Tom has a recurrence of his constipation. I suggested the palliative that we tried last time (unsuccessfully) and there was a similar lack of success. So I had to take Tom to the vet this morning. And he's got to stay in for treatment - the estimated cost of which is horrendous.

After that I caught up on most of my (self-imposed) online work - mostly collecting cartoon strips. The automated download worked well, except that Ucomics failed to post one day's worth - which I grabbed manually.

Evidently the timer on the Netgear router power supply restarted the box properly every day, or there were no ADSL problems - don't know which.

My Setiathome account is now up to 780 WUs - I can't quote full stats since I'm typing this in Wales (of which more below)

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Sunday, 31st August

This morning I got a call from the carer who was visiting my Mum. Mum was apparently very confused - "Where am I? Do I live here? Shouldn't I be in a house rather than the flat? Where's Geoff?" What with her increasing deafness, I couldn't make myself understood to reassure her. OK, that's a trip to Wales, asap.

Jane had gone out to the IKEA store around the North Circular, so I went to collect Tom and pay his care bill - UKP288 all bar a few pence (ouch!) - and then packed my kit and drove down to Wales, where Mum has recovered somewhat from her confusion. Her memory is getting worse - she doesn't remember where she lives, or where I live, for that matter. She does remember that I'm married and have 3 daughters - which is something. While I'm here I'll check with the carers, face-to-face, about how Mum is doing, and see the social worker about future provision, which may not be so far away, given Mum's loss of memory. I'll also settle what few bills that are outstanding, because not automated.

Another 'phone call today, while I was at the vet, came from my cousin, Roger - who I've not mentioned before. Sad news, I fear - his father, my Uncle Tom, died last Wednesday. Rog. had sent e-mail about it, but I hadn't connected for e-mail since we returned home, so the message was waiting on Demon's mailserver. The funeral is this coming Wednesday. Roger isn't expecting me, but I'd be there were it not for the fact that I think I'll need until Thursday to sort things here in Wales. I've got to get back to London for Thursday, anyway, since Tom's follow-up vet visit is then. Must book an appointment - in the evening.

E-mail stats for the fortnight I've been away: 808 messages, 555 rejected by rule, of the 253 survivors (of which 52 were list mail) 52 were valid. All the mail to one list was spam - 13 messages. No apparent instances of either Blaster or Sobig-F, although the list mail showed a couple of messages had subject headers suggesting that attachments had been stripped.
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