Its been a funny old week, I've had a birthday, and after last year it was nice to be able to go out and celebrate it! Under Covid restrictions of course.
I enjoyed a Tapas lunch with my family on my birthday. It was an afternoon affair as we were working that evening. We had Russian Salad, Meat with Potatoes and Old Clothes! Old Clothes I hear you ask!! Yes, a tapas dish called old clothes.
Back in "The Day" it was a dish that was made up of all the old veg and food items that basically needed using up, things that were passed their best! these days its a pulled pork dish with Chickpeas and vegetables. I thoroughly enjoyed "Old Clothes" along with the other tapas dishes and will most definitely have it again. We did of course have Bread and Ali Oli, it just wouldn't be Tapas otherwise!
I had hundreds of greetings on social media from friends and family and it was lovely to read through them all.
On Saturday we were invited to the cocktail afternoon at TJ's Bar in Los Gigantes, It is run by Paul and his cocktails are just amazing. The idea of the afternoon was for people to bring a bottle of something from home that they wouldn't necessarily drink, Paul would then take it and turn it in to a tasty cocktail. There were some interesting bottles of various spirits and Paul was very informative about the history and the stories behind some of the drinks, along with the methods used to make the cocktails.
From TJ's we went to La Bodeguita to celebrate my birthday with friends, we all ate and drank a bit too much but we had an amazing time, we were very well looked after after by Lee and her family.
The news is now starting to sink in that we are now back in to level 3 of covid restrictions. This means that the interiors of bars and restaurants cannot be used and we can only have 50% of our usual capacity on the terrace. It makes me wonder if its really worth staying open. We plan to stay open, however we may take a few days off over Easter. Even under normal circumstances, Easter is a very quiet time for us and we suspect that this year will be even worse. Live music has also been cancelled while we are in level three so our usual Monday afternoons at the Wine Bar and Terrace are on hold.
We are trying our absolute best to stay positive although I did read one post on Facebook regarding the hospitality and tourist sector. The author wrote that he felt like the Spanish government are trying to push the foreigners out so that when this is all over, there will be more jobs for the Spanish people. I really do hope that there is no truth in it but it is certainly food for thought. Tenerife is our home, we have lived and worked here for almost twenty years, our son Jack was born here!
There is something else that's bothering me at the moment too. Not so much here but on the island of Mallorca where Covid restrictions have been harder than ours of late, they are allowing hundreds of tourists from Germany and other countries to fly in and take holidays. The locals are being advised not to travel and not to visit each others homes over Easter, yet all these tourists are being allowed in. Spain has strict restrictions in place for Easter, although the Spanish are renowned for holidaying at Easter as its one of the very few occasions in the year where they get a four day bank holiday weekend. Will the restrictions stop them? I'm on the fence!
One last thing, I have been doing the Alcala walk for the last few weeks, its a lovely walk and great for body and the mind. We wear our masks as is the law, however if there is no one around and nobody coming towards us we sometimes drop them around our chin. Yesterday we decided to count how many people were and weren't wearing their masks. We didn't include runners as I don't think they have to wear them. The final score was that around two thirds of people did have them on and the other third did not. Not only were they not wearing them, some of them appeared to not even have one!
I hope you've had a good week wherever you are.
Take care and stay safe
H x
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