Caitlin!

Saturday was C Day. We somehow whiled away the morning and early afternoon until it was time to go into Arrecife and collect Caitlin from the airport. She was coming to stay for ten days, a working holiday, with Bob joining us for the last six days.

It rained hard in the morning, the sea roared, then it cleared a little. The surfers appeared, along with a surprising number of spectators, many of whom had no compunction about sitting on the lawn furniture on people’s terraces.

When we came out to leave for the airport, an Englishwoman was standing on our terrace to escape the rain, which had started again, but very lightly. She’d set her camera and other possessions on one of our chaise longues. When she saw us come out to leave, she showed no embarrassment at all about being there. I raised my eyebrow, but she didn’t respond. So I said, “This is our terrace.” She shrugged and said, “Sorry, I’m just waiting for my husband to bring the car.” And didn’t move. Did she think he was going to bring a car down the walkway to collect her? If she’d offered some apology at the outset or asked if it was alright for her to stand there out of the rain, we would have said, “Of course.” In any case, we were leaving and it wasn’t worth making a stink.

We did a fairly big shop at a Mercadona, mainly to replenish supplies of Cava in preparation for the arrival of our bibulous daughter. Her flight was scheduled to arrive at 4:45 and was only a few minutes late. We walked around the airport briefly to while away some of the time, then sat and read until she came through the doors. “O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy.”

We drove directly back here through dark clouds and occasionally driving rain. The turn in the weather was a poor welcome for Caitlin, who had of course been looking forward to sun. It had also driven away the surfers, and their fans. The rain at least let up enough that we could unload the car without getting soaked. We read somewhere that Lanzarote only gets 15 days of rain a year on average. One down.

Karen made a lovely dinner and we sat around, nattering until way past wee Caitlin’s bedtime – oh my god, it was after 10:30 before she was able to get away from us to her rest!

The wind was ferocious Sunday morning, although the sun was out – or in and out – and the air mild. There were lovely light effects with the morning sun and the clouds.

After breakfast, we walked up into the village to show Caitlin. The wind was still gale force, but the sun was out, and warm. The sea looked very dramatic. We walked down by the rock pools and then over towards the pier. By that time, it was rapidly clouding over and threatening to rain, so we headed back by a shorter route.

We went out again almost immediately. The plan was to drive to the Fundacion César Manrique, the non-profit cultural and conservation organization that Manrique and some friends set up in the 1980s. It’s housed in a property in Taiche, between Punta Mujeres and Arrecife, that had been Manrique’s home before he built the one we went to see the other day in Haria. He redesigned this space to be a cultural centre and gallery. It’s built on some fabulous lava fields from the 1730s Timanfay eruptions, with “bubbles,” or depressions in the rock with skylights. The bubbles had been incorporated into the design of the home, as sunken garden sitting areas.

We had a little trouble getting away, however. When we got to the parking lot exit, there was another vehicle in front of us. The driver was out of the car, frantically pushing at the automatic gate. I got out and tried my wireless gate-opener but it didn’t work either. We backed up and drove to the entrance at the other end, but it wouldn’t budge either. And there was evidently no way to manually override the automatic system.

One of Sandra’s cleaners was in the unit next to ours, so I ran back there, in the rain – it was now teeming – and explained to the woman what was going on. She called Sandra, but reported that Sandra didn’t know the number of the company that maintained the gates. Then the story changed and Sandra would “try” to get somebody on the phone, but wanted us to know that these people didn’t “normally” work on Sunday. I was fuming. The woman came out several minutes later and apologized, saying Sandra had been unable to reach anyone. So we were stuck, couldn’t go anywhere.

Except, luckily, we could. Just then, Karen came around the corner from the car to report that the other woman trying to get out had found somebody from another unit who came out and did something, and the gate had opened. I think there'd probably been a momentary power outage to the gate mechanisms and it fixed itself. In any case, we got out and got on our way.

The Fundacion was a disappointment to Karen and Caitlin, they said. I thought it was great. The gardens are lovely, reminiscent of the zen-like gardens at the Monumento de Campesino that we’d visited earlier. The space inside is a series of gallery rooms with big windows looking out on the lava fields. I liked a lot of the art in the first suite of galleries - all mid-20th century works by friends and contemporaries of Manrique’s – especially the Picasso drawings and an abstract painting by an artist called Julio le Parc.

We then walked through hallways, some very narrow, connecting garden lounges built into the volcanic bubbles. This led to another large gallery with paintings by Manrique. Karen and I had seen some in this style at other places – abstract with occasional semi-figurative elements, painted in dark tones with highly sculptural paint, often mixed with sand and other ingredients. The textures, colours and shapes clearly reference volcanoes and other Lanzarotean natural forms. Karen and Caitlin didn’t care for them, but I thought they were terrific.

The last part of the tour takes you out into the main garden, with its lovely ceramic wall mural – created by Manrique, of course.

In the little souvenir shop, Caitlin spotted some costume jewelry she liked, based on Manrique designs, so we bought her a ring as an early birthday present.

From the Fundacion, we drove to Teguise for lunch, at the Loris restaurant we’d gone to our first week on the island. The wind had turned chilly by now, so there was no question of eating outside. We went upstairs. It’s a funky little place, housed in an “historic” building, according to the menu. There was a guitarist playing when we first came in, but he soon packed up and never returned. We ordered wine and the special tapas selection for two, but for three people. Which after some miscues, they brought. It was exactly as we remembered. Caitlin was suitably impressed. Loris, the owner, was a little more sedately dressed this day, but was still wearing his trademark straw hat and kerchief.

By the time we came out, almost everything was closed up for siesta and the streets were deserted. It was also quite cool. We headed directly for the car.

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving around the north end of the island to show Caitlin the sights. We drove through Ye, Haria and Orzola before heading back up the LZ 1 to Punta Mujeres.

When we got back, the surfers and their groupies had returned. The spectators once again had invaded the terraces of the vacant units. One couple was standing on ours. They made no move when we came up and headed past them to the door. “Es privado,” I said. The man shook his head and replied insolently, “No.” “Si,” I repeated a little more forcefully, “es privado.” In fairness, he may not quite have realized that it was our place until I went and put the key in door. He may have just thought I was being officious. When I looked back after opening the door, they had decamped.