What Shall We Do Now Then?

I read a Spanish news piece today about an Ex Director of a Russian Chocolate Company, who is one of the forces behind the Adeje based Oberig association which supports the nearly 2,000 Ukrainians living in Tenerife. He seems like a good guy. His grandmother was one of the “niñ@s de Moscú” : the 2,895 children evacuated to the Soviet Union by the Republican authorities during the Spanish Civil war. He told the Diario de Avisos newspaper, (who were at pains to point out that he is a Russian passport holder), “all Russian speakers in Tenerife are against the invasion ( of Ukraine ) decreed by Putin” I also deplore the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but in this particular article I was struck by the reporter’s use of the phrase “Russian passport holder” – not Russian national, or just Russian, but emphasising the (one quarter Spanish) man’s passport. Passports have been with us for a long while! A type of passport was first issued in the reign of Henry V of England in 1540. By 1920 the Leag

  So here we are more than 6 months into my retirement and it turns out the answer to the title question of this blog is “not a lot to write home about really” I’ve been dabbling in watercolour painting a bit, but my retirement, for us, was always going to be about having the time to travel, to do the bucket list trips. It hasn’t turned out like that – well yet anyway. Covid restrictions haven’t helped, although we did manage a trip to the UK to see our new Granddaughter in October which was lovely. With all the bureaucracy involved I found travelling a stressful experience, but thank goodness it seems that the world (well the 1st world anyway) is now in a position where that side of things is easing a little –  just in time to start worrying about an actual war in Europe; Thanks Vladimir! Don’t get me wrong, we are lucky people, we live 365 in a place where some people pay thousands of euros to come to for a couple of weeks a year, but you do feel like you need to get off the rock som

The Chinese state media has branded online games “spiritual opium”. and this week announced that on-line gamers under the age of 18 will only be allowed to play for an hour on Fridays, weekends and holidays between 8pm to 9pm . China’s video game regulator has also instructed gaming companies to prevent children playing outside these times China cuts children’s online gaming to one hour – BBC News Why do the Chinese consider on-line games as opiates? British writer  Tom Fowdy   believes that China  “ is locked in a new ‘Opium war’ against the west, with a series of countries wanting to impose their ideological, economic and strategic preferences on them ” but what about those western countries, is the gaming culture harmful to us? Webster’s defines a gamer as “a person who regularly plays computer or video games”. Although I know that our 4-year-old grandson is obsessed with Pokemon, his 5-year-old sister has an iPhone (all be it a hand-me-down from her dad without internet access unle

It is bank holiday weekend here and a stroll down past the beach was quite an eye opener. The large number of people both on the beach and waiting in line to get on the beach, with access being controlled by citizen security officers, was in sharp contrast to the “Marie Celeste” scenes we witnessed during lockdown. Depending on your perspective visitors are Grockels-who-left-their-brains-at-the airport-so-stand-in-the-middle-of-the-road-and-almost-get-hit-by-a-car-taking-pictures-of-the-cliffs, or valued guests come to sample the delights of our island. As in many other places in the world, our hospitality industry has suffered greatly during the Covid pandemic and although some hotels have still not reopened, it does feel like things are starting to move a bit more now, even if some of the tourism is down to staycation-ing. July 2021 figures showed 20.7% of workers in the Canary Islands were still on ERTE ( Furlough ). Lives have been changed, forever in some cases, and I totally unde

This week mostly I have been shredding: sacks and sacks of paperwork and other memorabilia going back years and all of it my own! If you have been following events so far you will know that I was an administrator/ translator of other people’s paperwork for years, which, even if I say so myself, was always carefully kept and catalogued and returned or weeded out as and when required – my own documents – not so much. On the basis that I would get around to it at “some point”, my personal filing system consisted of shoving everything into huge plastic boxes (the giant kind that are intended for bedding) and never throwing anything away of course- this is Spain after all! Well now I have the time and “some point” has arrived and what a voyage of discovery it has turned out to be. Box one was the most recent, old tax returns, vida laborals, old passports – wow did I really travel around with THAT photo for ten years? By box two we are further down the strata of the archaeological dig of my

World Grandparent’s Day it is a relatively recent innovation, if we compare it with the celebration of other special days, which is why few people (me included) know what its origin is or why it was established. The celebration was introduced to the UK in 1990 by the charity Age Concern. It has been celebrated on the first Sunday in October since 2008, although it has not been as successful commercially as Mother’s and Father’s Day. Very recently Pope Francis declared World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, to take place annually on the fourth Sunday of July but here in Spain, Grandparents’ Day ( Día de los abuelos y las abuelas) is celebrated on July 26, the feast day of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, parents of Mary, the mother of Jesus. This factoid popped up on my social media today and got me thinking about my own family history. As the child of older parents who had both been married before, three of my grandparents had passed away before I was even born, but my mother’s mothe

Some Tenerife residents who are not fluent Spanish speakers may have been somewhat confused as to the meaning behind the “Vacunate Canarias” adverts appearing in mainstream and social media lately. They feature a bunch of kids dressed up like Oliver of Dickens fame and shouting “Vacunate” ( get yourself vaccinated ) at the camera – not because the modern day message isn’t an excellent one; it is, and not just for the Canary Islands, but what is the historical story that inspired the adverts? Be like them, become part of the solution and part of history:  #Vacúnate The backdrop for the adverts refers to the Balmis Expedition, officially called the Real Expedición Filantrópica de la Vacuna (Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition) which was a healthcare initiative that lasted from 1803 to 1806, led by Royal Doctor to King Charles IV of Spain, Francisco Javier de Balmis. The expedition set off from A Coruña in northwest Spain on 30 November 1803 and went on to vaccinate millions of inhabit

We were overjoyed at the news that our 4th grandchild has just been born in the UK, and of course thoughts immediately turned to grabbing a flight to go and have a cuddle! Just one problem we are in the middle of a pandemic. I have subscribed to updates from the UK government and the Spanish equivalent for the rules about returning to Tenerife, and believe me you really do need to check all the time – requirements seem to change almost daily. At the time of writing (15 July 2021), as our family are based near Nottingham, this is the check-list of information links for England (never mind Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales – they have their own quirks and requirements) Changes to international travel rules for amber list countries Before you travel 1. Check the rules for the country you’re coming from or have travelled through 2. Book any COVID-19 tests or quarantine hotel packages you need for your arrival 3. Get tested and complete documents When you arrive in England Leaving England

Obviously this is a subject dear to my heart now! Despite having helped countless people to claim their UK and Spanish pensions over the years, it was with some trepidation that I started my own claims, because of, you guessed it, BREXIT I was told that I would still get my UK Pension under the  European Community Agreement on Social Security between the UK and Spain  and that it will be uprated annually the same as for someone living in the UK, but you will forgive me for not believing them until the confirmation letter actually arrived.   If you have previously worked in Tenerife as I have, you will find it has an effect on the way you claim your UK pension entitlement when you come to retirement age. You should be sent a EC rules claim form 4 months before you reach your  UK State Pension age , but I telephoned them 3 months and 5 days before not trusting to the sometimes erratic Tenerife Postal system To claim the UK part of your pension, you can either: contact the International P

After almost 30 years living and working as a translator on the island of Tenerife, I am now (July 2021) retiring. Many people have commented in the past, usually during our excursions to this official office or that, “you should write a book”. Don’t worry I’m not doing that just yet, however I do find my self with time on my hands so have decided to write this blog. The first thing I want to do is to thank so many people for their kind words and good wishes and also wish my successor  Emma Swain  all the best for the future. Whilst I will no longer be dealing with officialdom on a day to day basis, I expect I will still have my “twopennyworth” to comment on issues that concern us here in the Canary Islands, but the intention is to mix this up with some lighter and more personal articles and topics. Hopefully you will be interested in the reflections of a young at heart Granny So true Hilary!