On:

Photo: “Bring Leah Wilson home”, Facebook. The family of 17-year-old Leah Wilson has thanked the nearly 800 fundraisers who generated €13,000 to return her body home to Bridgwater in Somerset after she died last Monday in an accident while on holiday in Tenerife. The family were unable to raise the money themselves after the expense was apparently not covered by insurance, and the family says that all funds surplus to the €10,000 that was the initial appeal for the repatriation costs will go towards Leah’s funeral. The family has been supported by the British Consulate in Tenerife.READ MORE

On:

Photo: Gran Canaria Cabildo. ***This fire was finally declared extinguished at 4pm on Sunday 25 August. Please see HERE*** Updated 2.30pm: The Canarian Government has declared the Artenara fire under control this afternoon. The protocols will remain in place while ground crews are damping down and bringing the fire to final extinction. Air crews have been withdrawn. At last! Updated 14 August 10.30am: Emergency services say ground teams have again worked through the night to oversee hotspots and damp down, ensure that no further outbreaks take place and consolidate where extinction has been successful. From 112 comes the lovely message that this morning there are noREAD MORE

On:

Photo: Tenerife Cabildo. Today, apparently, is World Lizard Day. I myself live in the mountains in a dry stone wall cottage which is home to hundreds if not thousands of the famous Tenerife Wall Lizard, Gallotia galloti, of which there are various sub-species. They share our lives, and we have seen generations, now, of the Corner family – the family living in one of the outside corners of the house, with the original “Mr C” long since survived by Master C, and probably Young Master C by now! We also frequently get mobbed for egg, tuna, or coleslaw by embassies from the hundreds if not thousandsREAD MORE

On:

An 81-year-old man died this morning at Puertito de Güímar’s Playa del Cabezo. Emergency services say that they were called out just before 9am with reports that the man had been pulled unconscious from the water, with fellow bathers attempting resuscitation. Sadly, however, the ambulance crew dispatched who took up the efforts were unable to bring him back and he was declared dead at the scene. He is assumed to have drowned but an autopsy will determine the precise cause of death.READ MORE

On:

Just a reminder that this Thursday, 15 August, is a public holiday for Asunción (Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven), the fiestas patronales for the whole island, and the focal point of the celebrations is the veneration of the Virgin in Candelaria itself – see post HERE. Banks, and many offices and shops will be closed. For a full list of 2019′s public holidays, please see HERE.READ MORE

On:

Apart from being the patron saint of Tenerife and of the town of Candelaria itself, the Virgen de Candelaria is also the patron saint of Alcalá on the west coast, and every August, not only is there a major fiesta actually in Candelaria (see HERE), but there is also a fireworks display during Alcalá’s own fiestas patronales that has become known as the place to see fireworks in south Tenerife. The fireworks are organized by the Los Realejos Toste brothers who have put on the exhibition, involving hundreds of kilos of gunpowder, for over 80 years. The display is acknowledged as the best on the island after only the famous LosREAD MORE