I was interested to read Donald Norfolk’s post talking about second honeymoons taken in the romantic seclusion of rural Lanzarote.

Lanzarote has some very talented artesanos, these are artists or craftsmen living on the island and producing hand crafted work and approved by the Cabildo de Lanzarote.

You may have seen the Artesanía Lanzarote logo attached to items when browsing art and craft stalls at the various markets around the island. These local artists have to apply to the Cabildo de Lanzarote each year to be approved, there were 271 craftsmen registered for the 2009 year from the following municipalities:

Arrecife 73

Teguise 56

Haría 54

Tías 35

San Bartolomé 28

Tinajo 17

Yaiza 8

There is a wide variety of craftsmen registered including: potter, ceramist, enameller, jeweller, silversmith, chiseller, Moroccan artist, shoemaker, soap maker, perfumer, decorator, traditional seamstress, traditional hat maker, glassworker, cabinetmaker, miniaturist, paper artist, recycling artist, musical instrument maker amongst others that don’t translate!

This is a guest post by Cliff Dean.

Four hours on the same hillside, drawing Kleinia. Sun on my face, cool breeze at my back from the dark blue sea.

From beyond the white cube house, the little dome of malpais, the abandoned Opuntia terraces festooned with lichens, comes the bored and hopeless barking of a poor dog chained up opposite the hilltop village. He barks all day.

From the ridge road behind him, in front of the palms and white roofs, comes the distant rush of traffic for El Mirador del Rio: a Kango hire-car, a struggling coach, a pack of cyclists - how loud they speak! I can hear them from here.

I can smell the goats too.

Two Lanzarote mothers, Angela Nudds and Louise Sverud launched a new website on the 1st January 2010 called greenbie. The website is an interactive blog with greenbies of all ages who have an interest in changing their lifestyles for a greener planet. Angie is from the UK and Louise from Sweden, so the greenbie website has articles and information in three languages (English, Swedish & Spanish) and has already been attracting lots of interest throughout Europe and America. Both Angela and Louise hope that by combining their expertise in education, IT, marketing and languages www.greenbie.org will become one of the largest green networks in Europe.

One of our readers contacted us to say that he had booked a cruise for Christmas and would be calling in at Lanzarote for the day, we went to meet up with Peter Hammond and partner Kim, both currently living in Gosport.

Peter and Kim were on the Fred Olsen cruise ship MS Balmoral and having spent the last twenty years taking holidays in Lanzarote. They decided not to go haring off around the island but to relax and stay in the Puerto Naos area. We caught up with them at dockside Café Mingo.  Peter is a character, he reminds me of the Bolton steeplejack Fred Dibnah, wearing his flat cap and four layers of clothes despite the Lanzarote heat. Peter will tell you that he has been likened to Fred before but he was from Lancashire where as Peter is a Yorkshire man.

Mark Hayes has been living in Lanzarote for 23 years, just over half his life. Having left school and completed his 4 year apprentice training as a plumber, he left the UK to travel, first to France and then on to Portugal and once the summer season ended he found himself on a plane for Lanzarote. He said it was a very different place back in 1986, when the plane banked round before landing, he did start to wonder what he was going to find here!

Mark found work where he could in the first few years and then bought a half share of a bar in Puerto del Carmen, The Irish Viking, after 10 years of much song and cheer in the bar business he then went to work in Madrid for two years for a Lanzarote company Tila e Hijos SL. He was the sales manager on the mainland and responsible for selling huge, expensive machines that crush and sort earth and rocks. He has good memories of this experience and explained just what a shock it was arriving with what he thought was great fluent Spanish to realise that when no-one speaks any English, his Spanish wasn’t as good as it needed to be and he was in at the deep end. Mark explained that two years was enough for him of city life, he was getting fat and he wanted to move back to a better and healthier lifestyle!

Pauline Barclay lives in the Puerto del Carmen area of Lanzarote with her husband Clive and dog Poppy, she has just had her first book published. The novel is called Magnolia House and features a family betrayal where a mother gives half of her house to her only child and is then forced to sell the home she had lived in for  five decades.

Pauline is now busy working on her second novel and when I asked her if Lanzarote features in it she told me that there is a Spanish side to Magnolia House and even has a Casa Tías in it!

Pauline and Clive lived in Redhill where she used to work as a PR Manager for the oil company Fina, electing for redundancy when the company was taken over by Total Pauline then studied for an Open University Degree and started writing. At first Pauline used to write short stories and later full length novels, you can download the latest short story free of charge from her website www.paulinebarclay.co.uk “Next Christmas Will Be Different”.

Today is the anniversary of the death of César Manrique - 25th September 1992. A remembrance ceremony was held at the cemetery in Haría at 11am and flowers laid on his tomb, the following cards were left for those also taking the time to remember the loss of such iconic figure for the island.

The photo shows César Manrique outside his house in Haría, written on the reverse was the following…..

César Manrique

No he parado de luchar por la limpieza y el orden de la isla (...).

No debemos desfallecer, hay que seguir adelante, estar vigilantes y mantener viva la conciencia crítica, pues el futuro nunca está conseguido, lo tenemos que hacer desde el presente.

Todo se puede corregir. Depende del entusiasmo, de tener una verdad entre la manos y una valiente y honrada decisión.

La denuncia y la protesta siempre es positiva y válida cuando va cargada de razón y como recuperación de lo justo (….).

El mayor negocio de un país es su educación.