The F-Word: Snap-shorts

Dominick catapulted us both out of bed just after 4 a.m. this morning having heard a mosquito in his ear. After ten minutes searching for the invisible wretch, it met its timely sizzling demise courtesy of the electrocution tennis racket.
  However if we'd not woken up as the cocks were crowing we'd have missed this beautiful moon, the photo doesn't do it justice but it was set against the clouds, casting them all in silver.

The F-Word Part 3: Food

So shopping is of itself an experience - especially for food. Unless I take my Spanish dictionary - it's not always clear what a product is, so cooking can be a bit random.

I made a chilli the first week here and was about to add a tin of tomatoes to the fresh tomatoes when I discovered the three cans I'd bought believing them to be tomatoes were some kind of tomato soup. For the record Fritos does not mean tinned tomatoes even if the picture on the can looks like that!


The one on the right is the proper stuff!

Mojo Sauce

Canarian Potatoes are a local speciality served with most meals rather than chips. They are minature baked potatoes with a salty, slightly crispy jacket and usually come with Mojo sauce which is a spicey bell pepper sauce, sweet and sharp at the same time and goes with almost everything I am finding. I'm so glad I have something to stand in for Nandos piri-piri sauces and this goes really well on chicken kebabs for the bbq.

Here's a monster kebab Dominick made the other night about to hit the flames!
 

 Almost everyone has a bbq of some kind - it's generally too hot for my special roast dinners - both to eat and to cook indoors. Sadly the rain of the last week has meant switching to the hob indoors and I am missing the smell of charcoal.

Another oddity we discovered is that the tea and coffee we made at home tasted foul - all salty and bitter and really undrinkable. This is due to the high salt content in the water which you can taste if you drink straight from the tap. So for hot beverages we've switched to bottled water. A side effect of so much salt in the water is that everything rusts really quickly - pans, cutlery, cars. Within two washes a brand knife will be showing signs of rust so as far as possible its best to use plastic - pity they haven't invented plastic cars yet though!

  It's quite easy to get old favourites though and I was relieved to find marmite on the supermarket shelves...so I neededn't have smuggled this one in after all!

 

Some of the packaging is weird as I posted on www.facebook.com/crumpetcapers about "slutty bread". 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCeQNPJtMWY

Does anyone remember the yellow Yorkie chocolate bar with the almond nuts in? Well I have been missing that for years since they discontinued it, but I think I might have found a replacement with dark chocolate!

I will have to wait until Saturday (cheat day - to be explained in a further blog) to trial it!

The F-Word Part 2: Of Flies and Fish

Perhaps it will come as some consolation if you’re stuck at work reading this, it’s not all fun and frolics on this island off the coast of Africa. Pests do abound as I discovered on our first morning here a few weeks ago.

I remember from our January visit that tiny cockroaches got everywhere in the self-catering apartment we stayed in, but they were small and I put it down to our choice of budget accommodation. It never occurred to me that these wee beasties were just babies and that they grow to the size of the mouth of a pint glass and even longer if you count their feelers. This is about two-thirds of the actual size.

   These prehistoric-looking creatures scuttle more rapidly than I could ever have imagined and you can get an excellent work-out chasing them with a shoe, but they are pretty hardy and usually survive the first few whacks, should you be quick enough to catch them. I’ve never actually encountered such large insects outside of a zoo. We discovered that every household needs a can of Raid and quickly obtained some. Dirty plates, used cups and every crumb must be cleaned up fastidiously and immediately to detract them. All food including in cupboards must be sealed tightly at all times. Otherwise you will find them having left-over parties in the kitchen, leaving piles of black poop up the walls and wherever they move. And definitely no toast and tea in bed! However, comparing this unanticipated challenge to the alternative of commuting on a train squashed against strangers for three hours every day to spend 8 hours in an office with mice running around, I’d definitely take las cucarachas.

  Mosquitos also abound, but it’s definitely worse if you are near water. In the holiday villa we rented a few weeks ago there was a pool and this seemed to invite mosquitos in droves. Unfortunately we didn’t see them, just the bites they left. These take forever to heal and are itchy for about a week. I have had several on me including two on my face, whilst they seem to prefer Dominick’s feet. You can’t really avoid them, but you can stay covered up (I am seriously considering adopting the hijab if I get anymore on my face!) although that’s not really ideal when it gets up to 80F in the day and doesn’t drop below 72F at night and there is no air conditioning apart from in some of the supermarkets. You can also buy wristbands which emit citrus odours to deter them, but they are only really efficient if you wear them on each wrist and ankle. Or you can spray every four hours with insect repellent and hope for the best. It doesn’t seem like the locals get bitten as much as us, so we’re hoping that we get some kind of immunity after so many weeks/bites.

  The biggest bane are the flies – you can’t eat outside anywhere without having swarms of them landing on you and your food and they do not take a siesta either so it makes sunbathing impossible. I am so glad we brought our electronic fly swatters! Mysteriously as the sun sets at 6 they all vanish and so eating out in the evening is the best time.

  Not all the creatures cause a nuisance though – the butterflies and dragon flies are enormous and beautiful. Lizards are common to spot around the apartment and help with the flies. The birds and chipmunks are relatively unafraid of people and will even eat from your hand in some places.

There are no sheep or cows or really much in the way of agricultural farming because the island is mostly desert and there is nowhere for them to graze. The most common sight are the goats. We took an off road journey and found a dog herding them (see below), which was rather odd, but not another human in sight for miles. The goats provide milk, cheese and meat and for the island and roam freely throughout the mountains.

  Best of all though F is for Fish and this is in glorious tasty abundance. I’ve never enjoyed such delicious prawns, shellfish, sea bass, dorado, snapper and tuna mostly caught fresh on the shores that morning. Fish has quickly replaced my life-time favourite of fillet steak. It is the staple, and really only other available, protein that is not imported from Spain or further afield. Luckily we’re both fans of fish and goats cheese!

Overall flies and fish win out over “mice and men” for me. I realise that there is no complete freedom from challenges and stresses, but what I can do is choose which ones I prefer to be fettered by and adapt to them.

 

The F-Word Part 1

Tuesday 13 November 2012

F is for Fuerteventura and a strange new life for me and Dominick, escaping the ever-tightening noose of London which, with the commuting, over-crowding and grey skies, meant we were only enjoying a fraction of our lives and not living in any sense fully. Life was all about surviving the journey to work, surviving the daily stresses, surviving the combat of getting home and then trying to raise a smile for one another when we got there.

In January of this year we came to Fuerteventura, knowing nothing about it, except it was a cheap package holiday that promised a little space and sunshine, a reprieve from an exhausting 2011 work-wise. We loved it and we decided there and then that we would move here and learn to live, instead of just survive.

From the moment I came home I fantasised constantly about going back - permanently. In the meantime I wasted no time constructing my survival strategy for the rest of the year, namely booking another week in November. It's what we all do - come back from a fantastic holiday and immediately look to the planning the next one I guess, and the planning and dreaming is half the fun.

To both of us the desire to move full-time was not just a fantasy, but a firm goal. I started to live as if it would happen, not knowing how we would make it possible, but determined as I always am when I set my mind to something seemingly impossible ( a bit like marrying Dominick, which I decided pretty much in a couple of days of meeting him). I started packing up belongings and for every weekend of the last few months took a bag of clothes, shoes, ornaments, books, games and dvds to charity shops, gradually shedding everything I knew I couldn't take with me. I told everyone I met I was moving, I just didn't know when. I got used to the raised eyebrows and doubtful expressions, as no one really believed me...and sometimes I wasn't sure if I totally believed me either.

We thought we'd have to wait another year so Dominick could get British citizenship in 2013, having resided in the UK for the statutory three years since he arrived in 2010 and then we'd be able to live in another part of the EU. One frustrating afternoon at work, as the Olympic euphoria in London had finally given way to damp weather and spirits, I felt desperate for a quicker escape route so I did some more research into the legalities, impulsively employed an immigration lawyer and discovered that, as the spouse of an EU citizen, Dominick could move anytime. We'd still have to apply for residency and depending on whether we had jobs and a place to live and no criminal records, we'd be able to get it. Dominick engineered a way to work from home as his company began to outsource to Eastern Europe. I had just gotten my honours degree in late August (after 6 years of studying whilst working), so I hoped that might help with obtaining a teaching position, but with the cost of living being so low, we figured if we were prepared to live frugally we could manage on one income for a while.

Finally we had a way to be here forever or as long as we want to be (pending successful residency applications) and so I tore up our return flight tickets, handed in my notice at work (HURRAY!), found an apartment and we flew to Fuerteventura for our holiday in November with no plans to return.

It's exciting, a bit scary and so very much to learn, but we're loving it and am so thankful to be here with Dominick. Sometimes it seems if you wish for something very hard, plan as if there is no way it won't happen and live as if it is about to, then it will.