TENERIFE 2015 Part 2

 

After a couple of days sunbathing and doing the Pilates and aquagym  I soon realised that my turquoise swimming costume was wearing out fast.  The fabric was stretching in areas of stress and I really needed to buy a new one.  Being in a holiday resort I thought it would be easy to find something suitable but after 10 shops and umpteen clothes changes where the body was invariably too short or the colour wrong I was on the point of giving up.  An idea from Bob to go to another shopping centre to have a look was the answer and we found the 'Parah' shop, full of lovely things and a wonderfully helpful saleslady.  She told us about the promo of the week: 2 for the price of one so Bob was happy too!  After a lot of trial and error I found 2 lovely Italian suits made of quality fabric and with excellent shaping inside and although I had to buy a larger size to get the body length they do give me a much enhanced bust!

 

Here's a sketch of the palm trees next to my sunbed one afternoon drawn in the new Derwent line painters which had got a little hot in the sun and started to blob badly.  I quickly got out my waterbrush and spread the ink and I think I rather like the effect despite it not really looking like the real thing.  In future every time I used them I was prepared in advance with tissues and brush!

 

The hotel was very good with the entertainment every evening and we used to sit in the lobby for a short while after dinner before going in to the bar to order our nightcaps.  From the sofa I could see 'Mara' singing with her small band through a series of mirrors. I memorised the view to draw the next day in my sketchbook as I didn't yet have the confidence to draw publicly in the bar. (This changed the next time she performed but you'll have to wait till next week to see the results!)

 

Some more of those palms in coloured pencils this time and only the writing in the line painters and as you can see they are still blobbing and had to be rescued.

 

 

After our energetic mornings and a salad for lunch our afternoons were spent relaxing in the gardens by the pool.  I managed to capture Bob reading his kindle and he's only wearing his shirt to protect him from the sun which was pretty hot and he doesn't like to use a lot of sunscreen.

 

 

One of the best of the entertainers was 'Johnny Circus' a Charlie Chaplin impersonator.  He started his evening in the dining room chatting up all the children and blowing up those long thin balloons so that by show time he was like the pied piper with all the kids following him and copying his actions. He performed a mixture of magic and slapstick and encouraged quite a few of the audience to participate in his tricks. By the end of the evening my face was aching from laughing so much!