Social history

The title is a bit misleading, but if I’d called it ‘my holiday’, you wouldn’t have bothered visiting, huh. People’s holiday blog posts can be a little of the erm, photo heavy bragging variety, can’t they. Of course this is no exception.

Whilst other, noble souls live in our house and man the work phone line - I can just hear her saying, ‘oh they’re away at the moment, try his mobile number’ - we two Dunnits are languishing in Lanzarote. It’s one of the Canary Isles. It’s 74.something miles from the coast of west Africa and on GMT which has not, I’m delighted to say, caught us out. Others have been more confused. I have to say that Mr Dunnit and I, who are struggling to stay in our fifties, are improving the average age at this particular resort. By about a millennia. But, it’s lovely to be referred to as a youngster by the residents and deferred to as a grown up by the children masquerading as staff, so it’s all good. 

Lanzarote is small-ish, and like the other Islands in this chain, formed by its volcanic history. There are golden beaches, but also there aren’t; lava and volcanic dust are evident everywhere. The fields are purposefully covered in the black dust after planting...it holds moisture like a sponge, and because of the trade winds, overnight dew is pretty much the only moisture. 150mm of rainfall a year doesn’t encourage much growth. And yet.....there are vineyards. I know this because we did a fabulous Wine & Tapas tour of three Bodegas yesterday. First sip of wine was at 11am. Luckily and as predicted, they were all dry and fancy, so I didn’t really love them, which kept my volume, tact and friendliness at an acceptable level. It was fascinating.

Vines are planted deep below the volcanic dust and encouraged to spread rather than clamber. The little walls are wind breaks (it is constantly windy on the high ground and the wind kills any growth that pokes its head over the wall!). Harvesting has to be done by hand, on the black lava dust, in temperatures that exceed 110. There have to be easier ways to earn a living. Certainly I cannot understand how a Bodega that produces say 5000 bottles a year can afford to sell them at 9 or 10 Euros each. They can’t be paying themselves much at all.

To be honest, my interest in the Wine tour was the same one that started WOYWW! Bodegas are the home businesses of lovely Canary locals and they were charming. Obviously because I’m English and have impeccable manners, I did not take any photos inside their homes. Sitting around tables under the shade of massive vines or beautifully kept stucco and sipping from their produce, eating homemade cheeses and getting ‘strawberries, and end notes of citrus’, whipping the old phone out to take some pictures would have been crass. After the third tasting, we were taken to a roadside cafe for a tapas lunch. You know the sort of cafe...where all the signage is faded by years of sun exposure, the shutters are drawn and paint peeling, and any locals around stop to watch you as you negotiate the broken steps. In short, the sort of place that we would never be brave enough to try. On Lanzarote, there a ‘teleclubs’ such as this in a fair few small towns across the island. The first house that had television was frequented by other villagers until it was a bar and food place. They seem still to be community centred and again, absolutely lovely. Lively and local, and with those straight backed chairs that force you into excellent posture!  I could not understand a word of the thick, treacle like Spanish being spoken at speed, but the lady who served our party was valiant in her attempt at explaining round after round of tapas. And of course, we relied, child like on Dan -  our extremely young, knowledgeable, personable young man of a tour guide. There was a feast, and despite being full, we were reluctant to finish. A chickpea and something stew, a goat and something else stew, fresh fish fingers (!), fried cheese, canarian potatoes, a salad with jam, lettuce, mozzarella and extra thick, probably years old balsamic vinegar....oh my life it was wonderful. If you’re planning a visit to Lanzarote, I recommend this tour. And they haven’t even paid me to say that.

 ( @winetourslanzarote on FB if you’re really interested).

Here we are, lily-white and tourist looking, outside the second Bodega. Note two things...Mr Dunnit will not appreciate the exposure, specially because we can’t work out how to change the mirroring image thing on his phone, but what the hell. And hey, my wonky face really appreciates the warm sun and would definitely benefit from longer than a week. I’m telling you this because I’ve already told Mr Dunnit and been pretty much ignored on the matter.
There will be more, but you don’t have to read what has essentially turned into a holiday diary; I’m really enchanted by Lanzarote. The clue will be photos that involve sunshine.