If I hadn’t restarted learning Spanish around 18 months ago, this trip to Las Palmas simply wouldn’t have happened. Last year we both needed surgery, so it felt sensible not to plan anything too ambitious in case one or both of us ended up incapacitated. We aren’t. Well, no more than usual. Fingers crossed.

We settled into our airbnb flat 2 weeks ago. It’s on the top floor of a six story building, by Las Canteras – a 3km beach which is around three blocks west of us.

It is bright, with two bedrooms and an open plan kitchen and a sunny terrace. It’s been quite wet, although it’s warming up now, This is apparently unusual weather for The Canaries, which is supposed to be year round sub-tropical. Around 80% of the clothes I brought are useless, unless I wear them all at once. The shops are doing a roaring trade in jumpers. I’d kill for my slippers.

There’s a small lift, shared by everyone in the building. On several occasions I’ve ascended with a tiny Spanish old lady’s chin nestled into my cleavage, or been wedged nose-to-nose with a friendly local, a toddler nibbling my knees. Nobody cares. There are too many stairs to walk up, so we all squash in regardless.

The flat is intermittently noisy: odd buzzing sounds, a dog barking, drilling, traffic honking, laughter drifting up from cafés below, and always, the roar of the sea in the distance. The noises come and go, and we’ve grown used to them. Bookshops, beach, cafes, supermarkets, bars that open improbably late, (Bochinche, which means chaos, is one of them), the school, all on our doorstep. It makes us feel alive. 

When we’re not nose-to-the-grindstone learning Spanish, the beach is good for snorkelling and safe for swimming — no violent undertow, only the risk of being gently shredded on the reef. Last week, it all suddenly took on an air of Clacton-on-sea, as the wind picked up, the sea boiled, and we stayed home wrapped in duvets.

At the southern end the reef disappears and the surfers lurk further out. Without my glasses they look like hundreds of bobbing seals. Further along there’s a posse of extraordinarily skilled frisbee players, apparently immune to both wind and gravity. 

  At the week-ends, however hard we try to channel our inner night owl, we’re usually tucked up in bed at midnight, while outside small kids play football in the pedestrianised street below our terrace while their parents sit drinking at the bar opposite. I’m tempted to stake out the scene one night with binoculars to see how they manage it. The adults never seem drunk, yet they sit there for hours.

  My mum’s come to see us for a few days. We went to the opening parade of a month-long festival that apparently ends in March with a giant papier-mâché fish being thrown into the sea. Who knows why? Another thing to ask our teachers’ about. They are very useful sources of local information, like how does everyone function on so little sleep? Apparently the children don’t, and fall asleep at their desks at school. With less people working in the city able to take a siesta, they function on less sleep than anywhere else in Europe. My teacher Anna isn’t one of them, as she is a “Madrugadora”; an early bird, usually in bed by 10pm.

Next week we’re going on a trip with the school into the mountains. I’ll keep you posted.