Tag: holiday

Is Lanzarote Spanish, African or British?

I have had a wonderful holiday this week on the island of Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands. The weather has been low twenties – perfect. The food and drink has been plentiful – perfect. I have had adventures with my wife, brother in law and sister in law. I have had adventures by myself. Perfect.

The Canaries are in many ways a perfect holiday destination for this time of year. Lower prices than peak season, but still guaranteed sunshine. And because it is term time we have not been disturbed by rowdy children; just by rowdy pensioners.

But the Canaries, and Lanzarote in particular are a bit odd. If it wasn’t for tourism there would be very few people living here. It is a big volcanic rock, and the uncultivated ground is black and rocky. The islands are just 60 miles from Africa, but are part of the European Union, governed by Spain. So you see very little evidence of being so close to Africa except the weather. Signs are in Spanish but there is so much tourism that it is just as common to hear English, from Brits and Irish. The seaside resorts feel like a warmer Blackpool, with a huge promenade, and hundreds of bars and cafés. A little bit of the UK in Spain, close to Morocco.

I wonder how I would feel if parts of Britain were so Spanish. Not surprisingly I know some Canarians resent it and I have seen some signs saying “No to Mass Tourism”. But I have also seen lots of other signs “Lanzarote Loves Tourism”. I guess it is hard when the economy is so dependent.

Whatever the rights and wrongs I have had a wonderful break and would happily return, whether African, Spanish or British.

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What should I do at the airport first thing in the morning?

I appreciate that followers of this blog probably think that all my life is a holiday. Since I retired I have been able to fulfil many of my bucket list wishes. We spend our summers on a narrowboat and have travelled most of the canals of England. We have spent a month in Orkney and a month in the Outer Hebrides. I interrailed all over Europe for a month. We have skied. We have stayed in castles. I am a very lucky chap.

This week we are having a proper holiday in Lanzarote. Mandy’s brother and his wife invited us to join them for a week. A free holiday in the sun, after weeks of cold, wet, dark, was too much to miss.

We are flying from Manchester and have arrived hours early. I always arrive early when I fly. I panic (unnecessarily) about hold ups in security and missing boarding. In my 60 years of life I have never missed a flight so perhaps I need to relax more. Or maybe the reason I have never missed a flight is because I am obsessive about it.

Either way, it means I always have hours to kill at the airport. What should I do?

The traditional way to use up airport time in the UK is to drink lager. There are only two times it is socially acceptable to get drunk first thing in the morning – Christmas Day and at the airport. There are an awful lot of people here with pints in front of them. But I can’t face that.

We could book an airport lounge. We always used to do that. We could sit on sofas with plenty of space, drinking “free” coffee and reading the newspapers. It is a comfortable way to fly. But prices have recently got ridiculous. It used to cost about £15 a person, but the price here for two of us would have been nearly £100. That is not good value for money.

We could go to the gate early. That would certainly mitigate my lateness paranoia. But the seats are always uncomfortable. They often change the gate. And it is boring.

We could have breakfast. T2 at Manchester has been recently refurbished and there are a wealth of restaurant options. They are pricey at around £17 for a full English, but it’s a lot cheaper than a lounge. I think that is a good choice.

And I still have time to add another option. What better choice for using time at the airport than writing a blog. You should try it.

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Should retired couples spend time apart?

I am in India this week. When I was working I used to travel here quite.a lot because I had teams in Delhi and Chennai. My last visit was in February 2020. I had meant to return that autumn, to say goodbye to my teams before retirement. Unfortunately the pandemic scuppered my plans and I was not able to see my teams in person, either in the UK or India. So this visit is my chance to meet up with some of those ex colleagues, as well as a chance to see some of the areas of India where I have never visited.

The India Parliament buildings from one of my walks
this week

I would love to have brought my wife, Mandy, but she would have hated the noise, the mix of wealth and poverty, and the spiced food which characterise this wonderful country. So we are away from each other for two weeks. Since I retired, this is the first time we have been apart for so long. For much of that time have lived every moment together, in the small tin can that is our narrowboat.

Given that for much of my career I would be away from home during the week, it is amazing we have not killed each other, being together all the time. There have certainly been moments when I have thoroughly irritated Mandy. But being together has become our new normal, and I have to say that being so far apart this week is feeling very odd. We video chat every day, but I am used to sharing my adventures and I am missing her.

But I know that logically it is important we retain our own identities. We are more than just a couple and this holiday is giving me a chance to do my own thing while no doubt back in Scotland, Mandy will be relishing having her own space. I am only three days into the trip, and by the end, I hope to have relaxed into solo travelling.

Do you think spending time apart is good for a relationship, or should we just be enjoying our time together? What do you think?

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Is this my last year skiing in the alps?

I didn’t learn to ski till I was in my forties. I was the kid that hated sliding in the playground, and saw nothing to enjoy in sliding down a mountain. But my wife really wanted to ski, and after several years of holidays that I did not really enjoy, I finally got the hang of it, and since then have loved skiing. We skied at least once a year until 2020, when we stayed in Morzine just as the pandemic was breaking. This week has been our first week on the slopes since then, as we came back to the great resort of La Plagne.

The view from our hotel

Last time we were here was five years ago. La Plagne is quite a high resort for the French Alps, with our hotel at 2100 metres, and the tops of the mountains over 3000 metres. At this time of year it should be guaranteed great snow, and back in 2018 the drifts were well over my own height.

This year has been quite different in the French alps, and just two weeks ago La Plagne was grassy hills and patches of ice. Fortunately last week it had the first big dump of snow, and so conditions have been good for us. But even then, by the end of the week the snow has been skied off on some of the steeper pistes.

When we started skiing, some of our favourite resorts were around 1500 metres, such as Soldeu in Andorra, and Courchevel 1550 in France. These days, even with artificial snow blowers, these are no longer great ski resorts. I feel that our days of skiing in the alps may be over.

I expect that for some readers of this blog, you may be considering me pretty privileged. If the worst that the global climate emergency brings is a change to my vacation plans, then lucky me. But it is still a reminder- a reminder that global warming is real, is happening and will change all our lives. Because it is progressive, climate change does not make the news every day, but it is probably the most important story in my life, and probably yours. I make no excuse for having flown here, and for keeping my gas central heating on when we get home at the weekend. But I have learnt to love skiing, and maybe this will be the last year with sufficient snow to make it work.

Has your life changed due to the climate emergency? Will things ever return to “normal”?

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Using up my air miles

When I was working I had teams in India and used to visit quite frequently. Over the years I built up 106,000 Emirates air miles, which are soon running out. This has given me the opportunity to try to use them up and get myself a final trip back to India to see my old friends. This blog is about the challenges that I have faced trying to book. It is a real first world problem story, so if that is going to irritate you, please stop reading now!

106,000 miles sounds like a lot. It would take you over four times around the world. When airmiles first started they would relate to how many miles you could get on a free flight, but these days, they are just points. I think airlines try to give you more so you think you have a big number but they aren’t actually worth as much.

I did lots of research, found some dates in February next year, when the prices are lower, and looked at return flights between Glasgow and Chennai and Delhi. I found that if I could do a flight to Chennai, I could do that with my miles plus airport taxes, and then pay for the return from Delhi. Unfortunately this didn’t work. Turns out that flying into one city in India and back from another does not count as a return, so costs nearly double. It also turns out that you can’t go one way on miles and the other with cash. You have to choose one or the other.

Emirates do what looked like a solution where you can use cash and miles, but when I tried that, the miles were worth very little, and again it was too expensive. But then I received an email telling me that till the end of the week I could buy additional miles with a 35% discount. This would be a solution that could work. I could buy 71,000 extra miles and then fly to Delhi and back using miles alone.

But then I hit technical problems. The website took me through the whole process, as far as taking my credit card details and checking with my bank, before saying “There has been a problem” and dumping me out. Emirates told me I was using the wrong browser, so I changed that but no success. My bank tells me that there is no issue at their end. So now I am sitting here, waiting for “the back end team” to call me back, and hopefully give me a solution before the offer runs out tonight and it becomes too expensive again.

As I said earlier, I know this is a first world problem, and I am very lucky to have the opportunity to even consider a flight to India. I also know that long haul flights have a massive carbon impact, so maybe I should not be going. But India is such a great country, and I have so many friends that I never properly said goodbye to when I left work, due to the pandemic.

Any thoughts?

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Who would go to Orkney in November?

I am very excited. We are currently travelling up to Scrabster at the top of Scotland. Tomorrow lunchtime we take the ferry over to Stromness in Orkney for the next month For anyone that does not know, Orkney is a set of islands north of the Scotland mainland, and south of the Shetlands. Orkney is a popular summer tourist destination, when it has daylight from about 2am to midnight. In winter, Orkney tourist attractions close, it is windy, wet and dark. So why on earth would we want to spend a month there?

The original retirement plan was to go in February, after stopping work at the end of the year. It was meant to help wind me down, hunkered in a cottage with a warm fire as the rain and winds blew around. Well the last lockdown put and end to that plan. In February we were not even allowed to leave West Lothian. Instead the retirement got kicked off properly with our long narrowboat adventure – more to come next year. But we still really wanted to visit Orkney, and November is much like February.

There will still be many archeological and historic sites to visit, amazing walks and views, great food and drink. And there will still be plenty of hunkering. We are super excited. Next week I will let you know whether reality matches my imagination. Orkney here we come!

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