Holiday Socks With Palm Trees

 For the man who has everything. Holiday socks. The owner of these socks has about 20 pairs. From all over the world. South Africa. Kenya.

Get help in Spanish speaking countries, swimming

Swimming pool (piscina in Spanish) at a Parador hotel on La Palma. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Spanish - English

ambulancia - ambulance

ayuda - aid / help

cara - face (I remember a in face and cara, like two cheeks, letter a twice)

caro - expensive (I remember, oh no, too expensive, ends in Spanish with the letter o)

gorro de baño - bath cap

Gorro de ducha - shower cap

necesito - I need

no - no / don't

no fumar - no smoking )literally no to smoke - infinitive

sombrero de natación - swimming hat

policia - police

¿tienes? - Do you have ... ?

English - Spanish

bath cap - gorro de baño

life guard - socorrista (life guard running to help, letter r twice, like the English word succour)

shower cap - gorro de ducha

swimming hat - sombrero de natación

Useful phrases are in

translate Spanish (google)

Wikitravel phrasebook Spanish (without ads)

Wikivoyage phrasebook Spanish (with ads)

See my previous post on mouth ulcers and a pharmacy in La Palma, in the Canary islands

Bottled water in Spanish Speaking Spain and the Canary Islands

 

Spanish - English

agua -water

antes - before

botella - bottle

consumir - consume (literally to consume

Espana (note the mark above the n meaning pronunciation is ny) - Spain

preferemente - preferably

Beautiful bus shelter murals on La Palma, tell you about the island

 

This bus stop shelter has the typical local orange tiles. So jolly. I love the colours. Curved tiles.

Lots of blue, like the sky and sea when the sun is up at mid-day, most of the year. 2026 was apparently unusual, with more rain until June. Abundant greenery on the lower slopes. Then tall pines. Finally shrubs, which are bushes less then 6 feet tall, then barren rock at the top. 

You can see a pedestrian path on the right with steps and a handrail. It is turning sharply, like the roads going up and downhill.

Blue is the Moroccan and Middle Eastern colour for protecting you, presumably from the devil. 

More practically, walls on three sides of this bus shelter protect you from the strong trade winds, which can blow you backwards when you try to climb up some of the mountain paths when hiking from a hilltop down to the lighthouse.

No advertisements, unlike bus shelters in London England, which don't even have benches nor seats, just ledges. Supposedly to stop people sleeping on the seats.

If people are sleeping on seats. There is a need for beds or shelters.

I like the welcoming, entertaining, artistic murals.

-ends-

Updated when I was back at my desk on June 12th. Please share links to your favourite posts.

If you get stress, distress, illness in Spanish with a mouth ulcer - and need a phramacy

 On holiday in the Spanish-speaking Canary Islands I got a mouth ulcer. I knew the home remedy from experience and my dentist.

So I asked for salt and tap water.

I also have pills which must be taken at home or in hotels on holiday with plain water, not mineral water.

Firstly, the greeting is not Buenos dias or tarde. It it is shortened to Buenos.

Spanish Agua del grifo - tap water (I had trouble remembering the Spanish - gives you grief trying to get it from a grifo).

I googled possible causes of mouth ulcers and these included lack of sleep and stress. I had had stress from minor irritations in the parador hotel on La Palma in the Canaries. I had no bedroom slippers nor towelling robe.

Savanna - slippers, bedroom towelling slippers in a hotel.

When I tried to communicate slippers by pointing to a towel Toalla and to my feet  I was offered a bath mat.

Finally, I achieved my objective. Salt water rinse. Fine for a couple of hours. But, at tea time, the mouth ulcer was still there.

Later I found a Farmacia - pharmacy, and pointed to my inner lip.

The pharmacist understood toothache.  Eventually she understood.

She offered me Aloclair.

10.50 Euros. Expensive

Cheaper than a doctor.

Peace of mind.

Unlike Bonjela in the UK, Aloclair came with an applicator.

The instructions were in Spanish.

.

Spanish - English

agua - water

aguas - waters

agua sin gas - still water (bottled water, not fizzy)

banos - toilets / bathrooms

buenas - hello / good day (any time)

cerrado - closed

de - of

doloroso - sore

entrada - entrance

farmacia - pharmacy

gracias - thanks

grave - serious

(de) nada/ nada - it's nothing / not at all / you're welcome, literally of nothing

mas - more

medico - doctor

Muy - very

necesito - I need

no - not / don't

pain - dolor (noun)

quiero - I want

no - no /not

servicios - toilets / services

si - yes

tienda - shop

toalla - towel

úlcera - ulcer

English - Spanish

pain - dolor (noun)

painful - doloroso

-ends-

Updated with vocabulary when I was back at my desk on June 12th 2026.

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Raven in La Palma

Fearless big, black  birds, ravens, strutting about, ignoring cars, cawing loudly.

 

Learning A New Language - Spanish

 

I have been learning Spanish on Duolingo for a year for my trips to the Canary Islands of Tenetife and La Palma.

The canary Islands were not named after canaries, birds, but after canines, dogs, Islands with peaks. Points like your canine teeth.

La Palma means the palm. Las Palmas means the palms. Plural. Feminine. 

Los Angeles in the USA means the angels. Plural. Masculine.

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Fathers' Day? June 21st 2026

Pixabay images for Father's Day

Is it father's day, the day of one father? In English we use the apostrophe to signal to the reader in a quick way.

The letter s is a handy dual purpose, fuel purpose letter.

Possession - swift signal letter S

The boy's hat

 One boy.

Father's day. One father.

A father, small initial letter, a type of object or person.

But. 'Please, Father!' Addressing your father or a priest, the capital letter in English is reserved for a proper name, a specific person.

In German, all nouns have capital letters. Does the German system have any advantages? Yes, it helps me, as a learner of German. I can sort out the nouns in a sentence to speed translation.

 In some languages you repeat an entire word to show more than one. Jalan jalan in Malay-Indonesian, roads, journeys. You might thînk the benefit of this system is added clarity.

I love learning languages. You discover new ways of thinking and communicating.

Another discovery for travellers is that different

countries celebrate on different days.

USA 3rd Sunday in June.

21st June 2026 in the UK.

You can make your own cards, using old photos of a father with his offspring, or his hobbies and achievements. 

Or download a card to print, or send an animated card. Several sites include Moonpig.

Free images are on Pixabay. I found it easy to click on a red button to save an individual image to Pinterest. Saving an image for use here was harder.

Useful Websites

Father's Day 2026 in the United Kingdom

Spain's Highest Peak, Mount Teide on Tenerife

 

Tenerife in the Canaries is dominated by the central mountain peak which rises to a point. The opposite of table mountain in South Africa which is flat. My husband and I have been debating the difference between a peak and a mountain. Can one point be the highest peak but not a highest mountain, or vice versa, and is it the same in all languages?

I see a mountain as being like Table Top, gently sloping to you can walk or ride a car, with buildings and towns at the base and half way up and at the top. However, I see a peak as being a point, like a spire, a crag, which you can scale only by artificial means. Peaks as jagged bit of rock, usually higher. Peak means the top. The point. 

Prosecco At Stanste

 

Heathrow has a Champagne bar.

Stansted has a Prosecco bar.

Shakespeare on Canary Winr

 

Canary Wine

 Can is short for the Canary islands. The volcanic islands in mid Atlantic en route from Europe to the Americas, famous then and now for their wines. Which escaped the phyloxera bugs whick killed off Europe's vineyatds. In the Westerlies trade winds on the trade route taking cigars fron Cuba. Even on Tenerife, mist and wind makes the black sand slopes green. 

Shakespeare and the World's Best Wine Museum

 

Casa del Vino de Tenerife. The Canary islands.

Maria José, sommelier.

I loved tours through the Champagne cellars in Rheims. Denbies in the UK had tours of the hillside, or cellars, a supermarket size shop and restaurant. So why am I so excited by my trip to Casa Del Vino, Tenerife, in the Canaries?

You get a free car park and tour of the wine museum. and a honey bee museum.  The Wine Museum also has a shop sellîng wînes and honeys. A restaurant.

The shop had free tester of three aloe vera and other moisturizers.

Or degustation. Costing 16, 20 or 30 Euros in June 2026. Ending with chocolate covered almonds.

We had coffee in the separately operated restaurant which had an English version of their menu offering intriguing, challenging options including broken eggs, wrinkled potatoes with mojo, bigeye tuna, corn cream, black pig cheeks, 

And 

Chocolate, oil and salt.

To get there we flew by Ryanair.

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Saved Signs

 As I travel I save bilingual signs.

 I leave at home the big desk diary which I don't want to risk losing. The large diary is also bulky and contributes extra weight.

 I keep a small notebook for my travel records. At the back, uding tje book upside down, are foreign language words learned from bingual signs.  This keeps me entertained when waiting for transport or service.