Black and White

You that visited Tenerife many years ago maybe remember a gang that were fooling money from the tourists on the beachfront. We called them "Black and White.
They had a couple of paper boxes on the top of each other out on the street . On top of them was a folded newspaper. Then on the top of the newspaper they had three glass mats. And under one of the mats there was a small white spot.
The rule of the game was you will get twice the money you bet on when you win. If you gave, as an example, 1000 pesetas you got 2000 back if you could point out where the white spot under one of the mats was.
They shuffled the mats back and forth saying ` black and white, black and white...Where is it?´
It was often many gangsters involved. One was standing at the box doing the trick. An other were standing beside acting like a tourist and then they had two other men standing down the street that called the one at the boxes if they saw a police.
If they didn't get any customers a couple of them went over to try the game and of course they won! They were so lucky and jumped and shouted. This made other tourists interested.
The shuffle went on slowly so everybody could se where the mat with the little white spot was. Then when somebody decided to bet and was looking for the money, the man suddenly turned the folded newspaper around a half lap and when the customer pointed out where he thought the spot was it had changed place.
The people that were spectators were not allowed to say anything.

We lived here in the wintertime 1998-1999 and were many times watching the sceam. It was terrible to se how much money they fooled from the tourists.
Later on there was a warning in the newspaper here on the island. Somebody had won a lot of money from this gang and when the person passed next corner there were some of the gangsters waiting for him to get the money back.

Today we have no problem with this kind of criminality here. The police force have been cleaning up which is nice. I wonder if there is an other place in Europe that has got as many polices as we have here on the south of Tenerife? You can see them everywhere.
A warning is necessary though when many of the electronic shops are still fooling the tourists.

The question of the day

When you go out shopping to a supermarket or a shop in Los Cristianos you get a lot of small plastic bags to carry the food in.
We get every week a lot of bags and I always try to save them in one of the cupboards in the kitchen. In the end of the week we have got so many that they fall out when you open the door. Then I take one and put the other ones into it and carry them out to the trash binge.
They are too small for our trashbin and we have no use for them.

Wouldn't it be better if we would get bigger bags that we can use for the trashbin?

Games

Clas has got a new work! Last time we visited Sta Cruz he bought a new game again. Now he has learned how to drive a train in real by using the computer as a simulator.
Yesterday he was driving trains the whole afternoon, back and forth between stations, trying to be on time following the timetable.

Before he was into a game about nasty truck-driving in the US. He drove from state to state and made business of the cargo so that he could collect money to be able to offer attempted bribes. His mum, in the game, was in the prison and he needed to buy some witnesses that were willing to give false witness in the courthouse to get her out.
I was looking once when he was playing that game. I tell you, for sure, it wasn’t only the game that made him sit at the computer day after day! There was a lot of “Dolly Partons” as well!

The questions of the day

I heard from a famous artist in Sweden that he has got problem with people that think they know him. He is blogging 3-4 times a day and the faithful readers maybe get to know more about him than they know about their closest friends. When they see him somewhere in the town they come over and start talking to him like they’ve been close friends all life even when they’ve never met before.
And it really makes him confused.

Last night, in the middle of a dream, a thought bright as a star in a clear heaven hit me.
How am I going to know when I start getting senile?
If I get many blog readers and they start knowing me, and start talking to me like they do to the artist in Sweden...How can I know if they are blog visitors or if they are people that I should know but that I’ve forgot when I’ve become senile?!
I read somewhere there is good medicals available today to facilitate the symphtoms when you get senile.
How am I going to know when it’s time for me to start eating them?!

The workers

The bathroom is almost ready now. Yesterday about 3.30 pm the workers showed up.
It was the director, the tile man and the assistant. The tile man will be back today and fill the joints with the pulp and then it’s ready.

When the wall work finally started yesterday everything happened rapidly. I lied on the bed trying to collect strength for the evening, but the door bell was ringing constantly and I became an involuntary door watchman.
After a while Clas left his computer and came and put a carpet in between at the door, ignoring my protests. It seemed like he was tired of the noise of the bell. But as soon as he went back to the computer I got up from the bed and toke the carpet away.
I don’t like our door to be open so that somebody can sneak in and steal something.
Our friends from Sweden were once robbed in Puerto de la Cruz when they had left the main door open. They were sitting in the living room with friends drinking coffee. A thief stopped by when he felt the smell from the Swedish coffee and went in and toke the coffeemaker.
When the lady later on went to the kitchen, to have the pot for an other round, it was gone.

To stay on schedule

Tonight we are going to play. My voice is not the best one but I will try to do my best.
Right now we are waiting for the man that is going to repair our bathroom. Yesterday he suddenly showed up at 3´00 pm telling us he will be back today at 11´00 am. The time has passed one o'clock now and we haven't seen him yet. But it's okey. We are just at home resting and have got time to wait.
In Finland we are good to stay on schedule. If we say we'll meet a specific time, we'll be there and if we can't we call and change the time. To just miss out the time put ourselves to shame.
I've heard Finnair has many times been the best aircompany to be in time.
Is it sounding like bragging? I don't mean to brag. Just like to tell you how our culture variates from the spanish culture.

Israel 1997

I will tell you about a special travel we made to Israel 1997.
It was the end of February 1997 and only a few days left of our year in Titusville, Florida.
Clas had finished his flight school lessons at The Space Coast Executive Airport and had got a licence.

An american man called John Lents, that lives in Titusville, came together with his wife to our home to say goodbye. He gave us an Israeli coin (shekel) and said `This coin will be a sign that you two will be in Israel in September this year!´ -Oh, thank you so much! we said. But I thought;`Us in Israel? Why?´It felt very far away. Specially when I only was thinking of getting back to Finland right then.

We moved back to Finland and I had almost forgot about Johns' words when we one day in the end of August got a call from The president for The International Christian Chamber of Commerce in Finland, Fredrik Ekholm. He is a friend of us since many years back. He asked us to join him and his wife on a fortnight trip to Israel in September, and we decided to go.
John was right! We went to Israel!

There is a big party in Jerusalem in September every year; The fiest of Tabernacles (also called "The fiest of the harvest").
The first nights we stayed up in Tiberias and went on sightseeing every day. We were sailing on the sea of Galilee, visited a kibbutz, we also went to many places were Jesus had been doing different things.

One day our group got a special permission to go by bus up to the Gohlan hights at the border of Syria. That area was a zone under alert right then and it was soldiers everywhere in the ditches and trenches. When the bus got to a hill where we could see over to Syria it stopped and we all went out. Then we reached our hands toward Syria and proclaimed peace.

I'm not going to go into politics, but I need to say that many times Israel has been miss treated in media. Of course, they don't do everything right but the media often distort the truth and blame Israel. And one of the reasons why we were in Israel was to show the world you can be a friend of Israel too! Clas and I like to be friends of all the nations.

After some days we moved down to Jerusalem. There we visited the grave of Jesus, the church were he was born in Bethlehem and many other places. In the nights we went to the fiest (one night out in the desert). The program was excellent with artists and dancers from many different nations and powerful fireworks.

One night was very special. The prime minister of Israel at that time was Benyamin Netanyahu. He had his birthday that night and came to the party to talk to us.
He said, among other things, he felt warm in his heart when so many people come from so many nations to Israel in a time when many are afraid to go there. I think we were about 1000 people from foreign countries there.
The security check for getting in to the party that night was little complicated. When Benyamin finally came in to talk to us nobody where allowed to stand up. He had many bodyguards standing in the room. And when he came to the fiest he had an escort of four police cars, with twinkling lights on. What a stressy life that man were living!

In the middle of a day in Jerusalem we joined a march in the town. There were representatives from about 100 different nations and we walked in the middle of the street protected by the Israeli army. It were soldiers everywhere with K-weapons. Even up on the roofs of the houses.
When we walked outside specific places, like the house of the mayor in Jerusalem, etc. we stopped and sang songs and swayed the flags.

The Palestinians were angry and screamed bad words to us at the street. They even took the Israeli flags we carried, and teared them into pieces and throw them on the ground and put them on fire. The event got headlines on the national TV that night.

This march is the most powerful thing I ever been doing in my life so far. It really felt like giving your life to a nation that was treated of war. A memory for the rest of my life!
The last days we were in Israel we moved up to a town called Netanyah where it's a beautiful beach at the Medditerranean sea.

The questions of the day

Why do they need to build one more runway at our airport here on Tenerife?
It's only Fridays and Tuesdays that are really busy! They could move some of the traffic to the other days, couldn't they?
Is the enthusiasm for the runway founded on bribes? I mean is there a foreign force in need of a landing permission on Tenerife? Maybe a force craft loaded with war materials is not allowed to land on the same runway as the planes that run regularly?
Sounds like a thriller! The reason of the new runway is probably pure political nonsense?!

Comments

It's a month since I started blogging. Sometimes I wonder is anybody out there?
I don't get much response. Maybe nobody is reading my blog?!
Don't be afraid to make a comment by clicking on the "comments" word that is under every post!
You can be anonymous if you like!

Baby?

Clas' sister gave birth to a baby in July last year. A cute little girl called Emma.
Before we went to Finland in December I was out in the town looking for baby clothes.
When I was walking around in one of the baby fashion shops here in Los Cristianos I suddenly stod eye to eye with an older lady. She smiled and nodded like she knew who I am.
The look in her eyes I'll never forget! It revealed she felt ashamed when she had disclosed my secret, namely that I am pregnant!
If you hear somebody whisper that we are going to have a baby, don't believe in it!
I tell you like it is! My little stomack is real flesh indeed! And I am too old to have a baby!

This is Spain!

Last night before we went to bed we brought up our last strenghts and toke out all the stuff from the bathroom, preparing for the reparation of the wall that will start today. I even had a shower when we don't know how long it will take and we also moved away furnitures and carpets in the livingroom so that they easily can pass by.
Now it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon and we haven't seen any workers so far!
We could have guessed it, couldn't we? Now we sit here and wait, maybe for days, with all the bathroom goods piled up in the bedroom! This is Spain!

Recycling

Hi,
Because of the large amount of trash that everyone produces every day it is very important to start thinking in our Planet's health!
The basic idea is to "wear" in your page one of these RecyclingPins to remember all visitors the responsibility to Waste Recycling, Separation and Reutilization!
It's a small gesture... but with your help, it will become a big one!

Please, Recycle!
Thanks

This is a letter I got in my e-mailbox today.
I was careful with the recycling before when I lived back home in Finland...
But here on Tenerife! Who cares?!
I've heard the stuff finally ends up on the same scrap-heap somewhere down in a walley here on the island.
I will put up a recyclingpin here though. To all of you that don't live on Tenerife.

RecyclingPin.blogspot.com

Not better!

Today when I woke up I sounded like a parrot and my eyes were swollen. I got up and started making a cuppa to alleviate the pain in the throat. Then my nose started rinning again and I was sneezing like crasy. I had to realize it's impossible for me to sing tonight. I can't take a tone! Oh, it feels terrible!
I am still so bad that we have moved my comeback to Tuesday now.
I eat Panadoxal for the ace and Rinnexin for the rinning nose. Every time I take the pills I feel little better after a while, but then it gets worse again. I have spend the whole day in the bed.
Clas will play alone tonight and we got a sms from our linedancing friends that said they will be there and support him. That's nice!
It's nice weather and hopefully it will be crowded.

Mount Teide, 3918 m

I like to go up to Teide, the vulcano that is the third biggest in the world, and that we have got here on Tenerife. The nature up there is just awesome!
I don't understand how some tourists can come here year after year without going anywhere on the island. Oh, so much they miss out! Tenerife is very beautiful.
When we moved here in October 2004 the vulcano was under yellow flag, which means there is a possibility for an eruption. There was discussions about how to evacuate the people on the island, if something happens, but after a while it was hushed up. Maybe somebody was afraid it will scream the tourists away?!
Now we are under green flag and that means we are under no risk.
Clas and I have two times been going by the cabin up to the cabelway station about 300m below the top.
The first time 1990 I promissed I will never do it again. The cabin was a really old one and you felt unsafe to stand in it. But we made it!
Up at the station we bought a Lumumba witch was a must because of the temperature. That's a warm chocolate drink with brandy in it. I think it went straight in to the blood and we just started laughing. Or was it the altitude? We realized that our tongues in the mouth had become bigger! And when we pushed them up toward the roof of the mouth they seemed to become smaller! Sounds stupid and I have been thinking about it after.
One day in April last year (2007) we visited Teide and when we come to the station of the cabelway we felt we would like to go up again. Now they've got a modern cabin and the travel up and down was a pleasure.
We payed the tickets and went over to the queue that was short when it was in the afternoon.
We got a piece of paper each, saying it's prohibited to walk outside the pathway when we get up and that we are only permitted to stay there for one hour. That was okey for us when it's very cold and windy outside the station. You are not permitted to walk up to the top anyway. To do that you need a special permission from Sta Cruz.
Finally up there we toke a lot of photos. A couple from Luxenbourg started talking to us and they said they had been stepping on the side of the pathway and the ground felt soft! Later Clas went one meter from the pathway and sat down on a "stone". Then he felt a smell of rotten eggs coming from the ground. He put his hand down to feel out, and under the stone where the smell came from it was at last + 50 degrees. The photo above is from that place.
How was our tongues? No! They didn't really feel normal this time eighter! And we had no Lumumba! He,He! Remember to check out your tongue if you go there!
There is , by the way, no bar at the top anymore.
Every now and then we get questions about taking people up to Teide. They rent the car and we drive. Everybody gets the same answer: No! You become very tired when you get down from the mountain and we need to play in the evenings. It's little bit sad because if I didn't have anything else to do I could visit Teide every day! But it's very easy to go there by car and whoever that have got a driving licence can drive. It's like driving on main country roads.
There is no activity in the mountain today. Teide is a sleeping vulcano! That's what the public authorities say. I hope they are right!

My day

Many ask me what I'm doing during all the spare time I've got in the day. Sometimes I get tired to tell about all what I've got to do. And Spare time?! I don't really feel that I've got any! I am busy all the time and never get boring.
When we come home from the restaurant about 0' 30 in the nights I many times have a shower.
Specially if it's been a warm night with a lot of linedancing. Then we sit on the ballcony and eat a small meal and talk and I don't get to bed before about 3 o'clock. If I start working on the computer (answering e-mail, bloging etc.) the bed time can be as late as 4 or 5 o'clock, which is the time when Clas gets tired. You maybe ask why we don't go straight to bed when we get home? It doesn't work!
I try to sleep 8 hours which means I wake up in the noon. If I don't get a sleep of eight hours I need to take a nap in the afternoon, to be fresh in the night. That's just how it is!
In the daytime I have got a lot of things that need to be done. I clean the apartment 1-2 times a week ( the dust is abundant on Tenerife!), wash clothes and do the ironing 2 days a week (we use a lot of outfits every week), do the dishes, take care of the flowers, go shopping fruits and breakfasts and night meals. But this is only about the home.
Then, one day a week, I need to help Clas to make the CD:s we sell in the nights.
When I get time I listen and search for new songs + do the rehearsal. Right now I have got 8 new songs to practise.
I go out shopping new clothes and boots for us 1-2 days a week if I get time. And one day a week I plan the outfits we are going to wear the coming week. I blog and answer e-mails almost every day. And right now we are on the threshold of producing a new CD. We are already deleyed when it should have been ready this week! Reason: Lack of time! Hopefully the people that already have ordered the album will be patient.
When we start playing at 9 pm we leave our home about eight to get time to eat the dinner we get at the restaurant every night. This means I start doing the makeup and the nails at 7 pm every night which means I start preparing myself 2 hours before the official show time.
If I still got any spare time I call my family, and sit in the sun, we go out for lunches with friends and go shopping to Sta Cruz etc. But that happens very seldom. Look how pale I am! Sometimes I really look like a ghost!!
When people that we know, come down to Tenerife, it sometimes put everything on the edge. I then become deleyed with all the undertakings. To just sit down and keep holiday in the middle of the work causes stress later on. That's an experience!
We are out in the restaurant six nights a week and our night off we spend somewhere in another restaurant with people that like to meet us. That means we very seldom get a night on our own. Months passes without an evening in our own home! It happens only when we get ill, like now.
But we don't complain! We like this life and think we were born to do what we are up to.
I get tired to explain all this over and over again...That's why I decided to write this post. Now I can tell everybody that ask to go and read my blog.

Every night get its stars

I always keep a statistical eye on our country and western show.
I've got a book where I enter everything about; how many visited us, how many CD:s and what kind of CD:s were sold, was it a good or a bad night, what outfits did we wear etc.
Many times I even write in when people arrived and leaved the island. When I don't know their names they can get nicknames like "The man with the pink T-shirt", "The italians", "The singer", "The good linedancers", "The chatter", "The wanna be", "The drunkards", "The country enthusiast ", "The gigolo", "The party gang", "The restaurant owner from England" etc. Who they really are is a secret! Only Clas knows.
It's a really intresting and valuable journal to read when we can get information about how it exactly was the same time last year.
When I look at last week, but one year ago, I can see it was very crowded and good nights and that means the restaurant owner of Lewinski has lost a lot of money while we have been ill. When we don't play they maybe get 1-3 tables filled with people in the whole night.
When I look at this coming week it's going to be quiet (maybe 80-100 people/ night) in the beginning of the week, but in the weekend we can have about 150-200 guests per night. But of course, we can't trust this system straight of when the weather also makes influence.
The really good nights with many dancers and good response from the audience is getting *** in my book. The nights with only a few dancers and only a little response get ** and if it's a
real bad night it don't receive any stars at all. That kind of night demands to be black!

Recovering and Thank You!

Finally I can tell you I start recovering! No fever! Only a rinning nose and a terrible cough.
I think we will be back on stage Sunday evening and we both really look forward to it.
We are sorry some of the tourists that arrived last Sunday, and that will stay only one week, will miss us out totaly. Some have called us night after night to see if we will be back.
Hopefully we'll meet next time you come to the island!

Thanx a lot to all of you that have been sending greetings, cards and gifts for our Crystal wedding anniversary.
It was really encouraging to get congratulations from you. Specially when both of us were so weak of illness that we couldn't manage to arrange anything.

What a week!

It all started Monday. Clas caught a cold with a cough and a high temperature and we couldn't play. He was not in good condition Sunday night eighter and I had to sing all the songs.
Tuesday I started feeling ill and after a while I started throwing up and it continued the whole next night! And Clas had still fever.
Wednesday I got high fever too, but I said maybe I will be better Thursday and we can play.
Today I´ve still got fever, but it's lower now, but I've got a sore throat instead and I feel very weak. Hopefully my throat is better tomorrow so I can sing.
But one thing is possitiv though! And that is that I've lost 3 kg as a result! ( Is that about one stone?) I have only been drinking fissy water and had a banana in the last 60 hours!
Now we have cancelled our trip to El Hierro. None of us could make it to go there.
And the wall job is put on hold until Monday. None of us have got the power to take down the shelfs and all the stuff in the restroom.
Oh, we just have to realize that the life on Tenerife is not only about sun , beaches and swaying plam trees! Here we are living the real tough life right now! But one thing is good to know; when something is as bad as it can be, it can't get worse. So the future right now should look bright for us, because it's going to be better and better!
If we are better tomorow we will play in the night. We have heard many tourists and friends have been at the restaurant asking for us, and some have even called us and asked when we will be back. Our wish is that we'll be back tomorrow night!

La Restinga , El Hierro, May 2007

From the left:
Me looking out from a cave.
Clas is posing for a "post order catalogue".
Warning for cows!

I will show you some pictures from the last time we were on El Hierro.
The quality is not good when Clas had bought a new phone and it had a plastic film on the camera lens that we didn't know about.
Pay attention to the hoofs on the cow sign! They look more like the hoofs of a horse! And the head is more looking like the head of a cat or a dog!...But the behind is however looking like a real cow behind!
Clas' shorts are from "Confecciones 99" in Los Cristianos 12.95 euros, and the shirt is from a shop somewhere in Los Cristianos, 14,90 euros. The sunglasses are 4 euros, from an african salesman on the street somewhere?! Not expensive at all!
It looks like Clas is standing in front of some big "cow cakes", but it is really stiffened lava from the vulcanos!
Please, click on the photos and they become bigger.

The wall again

The tiles are almost falling down from the wall

Now the bathroom is inspected and it will be repaired Friday-Sunday while we are on El Hierro.
It's nice they can fix it right then, because that means we don't have to live in a lot of dust without a bathroom and with workers running in and out.
The man ment it's not dangerous and they can repair it and he said they can start already tomorrow but we prefer to get it done while we are on El Hierro.
I think this is the most rapid service we ever been offered since we came to Tenerife. Normally you maybe have to wait for weeks or months to get this kind of work done. When our water heater gave up last summer we had to wait for one week to get it changed! They promissed to show up every day but never came. I was almost screaming every time I had a shower when it felt like jumping into a sea filled with ice floes.
Hopefully they start the work Friday as promissed and we have a brand new bathroom when we come back home.

The wall

It's 2:22 in the middle of the night and I will soon go to bed.
I've been thinking about what can happen if the wall collapse while we are sleeping. From the street our bedroom maybe would look like a doll house. I don't think the bed will fall down but one of the walls in the bedroom is the same as the one that is most warped in the bathroom so we probably will loose that wall.
The tiles on that wall were making noise earlier tonight, when I was in the bathroom doing the make up, and I don't feel safe. It's still strong calima winds outside and a lot of sand and dust whirl around. Calima is a kind of sand storm that comes from the desert of Sahara and it brings a lot of sand and high temperatures to the canary islands. Often it lasts for three days and we get many calimas here every year. This calima has been going on for two days so far. The temperature is now in the middle of the night + 24 degrees.
Clas has inspected all the walls and to all appearances it looks like there are loose tiles on all of them! When he knocked on them carefully you could hear there's air behind them. But one peculiar wall is in very bad shape.
He thinks it's the pillar in the corner that has given way. He say the worst thing that can happen is if the wall is collapsing while he is sitting on the toilet, because then he maybe fall down to the restaurant under us with his under pants down at the knees. He thinks that wouldn't be fun, specially if somebody is there eating. He can make jokes about everything.

Collapsing wall?

The wall

Yesterday was our day off and we invited some friends from Malax, Finland for dinner.
Later in the night when we all were sitting out on the ballcony it suddenly sounded a bang from the restroom. We thought something falled from the shelf and our friend Tina went over there to see what happened, but everything looked alright.
This morning Clas woke me up by telling me one of the walls in the toilet is bending out and the glazed tiles are almost coming down. Now I am afraid it's going to collapse and we have to wait until tomorrow to get it investigated. A couple of years ago they strenghten all the pillars in the cellar and you could see already then that the house had started sinking in the corner. Maybe it needs to be said that the house we live in is only about 15 years old!
Hopefully we don't have to be evacuated.
It has happened before that houses have collapsed here on the island. Some years ago even a big hotel in Las Americas collapsed! Something was wrong with the design.
In December a couple, that have bought an apartment in one of the new buildings here in Los Cristianos, got a surprise when they came home and found the floor looked like it has went through an earth quake! All the tiles were sticking up from the floor!
Maybe it is the sand storm that is raging outside that started the whole thing in our house?! We have a calima going on right now and it is very warm and windy.
Or has there been a small earth quake?! I hope we are still alive tomorrow!

No bag

Okey, I think it's time to give up! I talked to the owner of the company today but he didn't like to talk to me and closed the call when I asked for my bag. Why is he angry? I have only been talking kindly to him and been patient and I just said `Hello, have you found my bag?!´ I went later over to see him but he was nowhere. Seemed like he had been in a hurry to leave when his car was open with the keys inside and everything. I waited there for a long time but he never showed up.
I think I better should use my energy on getting a new drivers licens from Finland now and order a new spanish healtcard. I realize it is impossible to get back my bag.

Patience

Patience, that's what I need now! My forgotten handbag is not returned yet!
Monday when I visited the company, where we hired the car last weekend, they promissed to call me Wednesday morning when the car will be returned Tuesday evening. Of course they forgot it and I called them around 9 o'clock in the morning. Then they told me the car will not be returned before Wednesday evening and promissed to call me Thursday morning when they've checked the car.
Today I waited for their call, but nothing happened. About 11 o'clock I called them again and they said sorry again! They will check the car tomorrow morning when they get it back and they said they will call me as soon as they find it. This is Spain!!! It's not wise to let yourself into stress so I try to just relax and not to think about it. Hopefully I get it back tomorrow!

I lost my handbag

I lost my handbag when we went to Ikea and Alcampo Saturday!
When we parked our rented car at Alcampo I put the bag under the front seat. Later when we came back home I forgot to take it out.
This morning I called the company, where we hired the car, and they promissed to look for it. But I know how easy they forget to do things in Spain and decided to go down to the company to see if they've been looking for it.
Then it turned out the car was already let to somebody else and it will be returned Tuesday evening.
Now I have to wait until Wednesday morning to get it back.
I didn't have any money in the bag but my health insurance card is there, and the driving licence + some make- up, included my favourite lipstick.
I pray to God I will get it back. It maybe will be difficult to order a new drivers licence from Finland without going there?!

Flower nursing

The flowers I bought at Alcampo

It's Saturday night and we are back from our shopping trip to Alcampo and Ikea.
We found a lot of stuff to buy. Clothes, two tables, a big quilt etc... and the back seat of the car looked like a jungle when we drove home, because I bought some flowers for the ballcony at Alcampo and two of them are really big.
I don't know how people get the flowers to survive. My flowers always die after 3-6 months.
First they start looking yellow and then they loose their leaves. Maybe they don't get water enough?! Now I have promissed myself to water them every day to be sure they don't pass away.
My mam used to call me almost everyday before when I stayed home with the children. Then she always asked me if the flowers have got any water. And when she came to visit she walked around in the house and put her forefinger into the pots to check out that the soil wasn't dry or too wet. She's very good in taking care of flowers and I wish she would live closer so that she could give me a piece of good advice.
It shouldn't be difficult to grow flowers on Tenerife, but for me it just doesn't work.
I heard from a friend here that you can take a flower from a plant and let it dry and then put it into the soil and you will get a new plant. And I tried it. And I really looked after it and gave it the water it needed and after some weeks a new plant started groving . What a surprise it was for me! I was so proud!
But one day our friends Ray and Debbie visited and they asked `what kind of flower have you got in that pot?´ And they started laughing and told me it was a weed. And they said they can bring me many if I want when there's thousands of them out in the fields.
But I didn't throw away the plant before it had been flowering. Why should I when I finally got a flower that enjoyed my care?!
I felt lucky every time I looked at it, because I knew I gave that little flower a really luxury lifetime. It lived like a princess in that pot with good nutritious soil and with space enough to really bloom out and show it's best shape. I think it got the life I myself would have been longing for if I would have been a flower.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Alcampo in La Laguna, Sta Cruz

Tomorrow when it's our day off we (Clas and me) are going to Santa Cruz for shopping.
I love Santa Cruz! It's "my little Stockholm" here on the island. I think the old town of Santa Cruz resemble the old town of Stockholm.
But tomorrow we are not going to this area of the town. We are going to Alcampo and Ikea in the area of La Laguna.
Alcampo is a huge market with 75 (seventyfive!) cashier´s offices, and it's placed in a big commercial center that also has many other shops.
Ikea is fairly big, as well, and it takes us about 2 hours to walk the whole "shop labyrinth" there.
Oh, I think it's gonna be a lovely day tomorrow!

New hair colour

Yesterday I had an appointment with my hair stylist James from London.
I've been thinking for a long time that I have to change my hairstyle somehow, and yesterday I told him to take away the hilights I've had for about two years now. I told him to colour my hair dark brown which is more similar to my own hair colour. And to put a few dark copper brown hilights into it.
Today I really feel like a new woman! I just have to stop and look in the mirror every time I pass it!
Clas´ comment on it was that I look six years younger! He, he! Maybe he tries to collect some extra points with me? I don't know but I choose to believe him. He looked serious when he said it though!
Last time I had dark hair it caused me a problem. A man came one night, to the restaurant where we played, together with his wife and an other couple. After a while he came up to the stage with dogged lips and told me that I'm not the lady singer that is on the big sign outside the restaurant!
`Yes! I am!´ I said. `No! You are not!´he replied with a commanding voice. `The lady on the sign outside the restaurant is a country singer from England, and you're not her!´he said. I tried again to tell him that I am really the lady on the sign...and that I've got my hair coloured darker... and..., but he didn't believe me.
Later when I told this to my friend Debbie she said I really look like an other country female singer, from England, on the sign. So maybe these two couples had planned to have a night out listening to her and ended up listening to me..?! I don't know! Sorry man, if I fooled you!
If you are on Tenerife and like to have your hair done I would like to recommend you to go to James in Las Americas. But you have to book in good time when he's very busy! Phone: 922 792 166.

The signpost outside the restaurant

It was lost but now it's found!

Clas bought a new mobile phone up in Finland when we were there in December. It's one of the latest models of Nokia and he has been so proud of it and think he is the first one having this model here on the island. He bought it before it even was for sale in Finland after managing to convince a salesman to sell the only one they've got early as an advertise model.
When we came home in the new years night he realised he had lost his phone and I could see on his expression that he was really worried. I said maybe it was left on the table at the restaurant and told him to go down to a phone booth and call his number to see if somebody have found it ( my phone had shut down and didn't work). I wrote down the number on a piece of paper (he don't know his telephone number) and then he hastened off to the phone booth outside where we live. After a while he came back and he had even a more sorrowfull expression. He throw himself on the bed and was laying there staring stright out into the ceiling.
I asked, `Did you get any answer?´ -Yes! he said. `Oh, they've found it at the restaurant?´ I said. -No! It was an english lady that answered, he said. `Good! Where did she find it?´ I asked. -In the backseat of the taxi... and she will keep it! he said with a harsh voice.`What! Keep it? Why is she going to keep it?´ I said. - She said that I lost it, and that she found it and will keep it, and then she put the receiver back in it's cradel! he answered.`Oh what a nasty woman! She can't do like that!´I said. -It's gone! he replyed and his eyes where really sticking out.
Then I took the telephone and gave it to him and said with a voice of victory, `Here it is!´ What a release it was for him! First his mouth went wide open, he couldn't understand anything, and then he started laughing like crasy. Of course I was the nasty english woman! The only problem was that he didn't recognice my voice in the phone! And he didn't remember where he had put the telephone when we got home.
When he went out to call, it started ringing in our apartment. I looked everywhere to find the phone, and when I finally got it, from the drawer under the TV, I introduced myself as a nasty english woman. I tell you I had really a hard time to keep a poker face while we had the conversation when he came back. I was laughing like crazy inside.
You that have visited our show on Tenerife maybe have noticed that Clas is a joker. You have sometimes to be careful to not let yourself be taken in, and many times I've said I will give back.
The occacion finally came this new years night. Poor Clas! Now he says he will give back, and that is something that really scares me when I think about it. It was the first and only time I've been doing this kind of joke to him and I felt like a witch, which was not fun...so I maybe have to make a kinder joke to him next time.

Ironing

Ironing is something I don't like and every week there is a lot of clothes that need to be done.
This morning there was a big pile of stuff waiting and I really hesitated to start doing it when I rather would like to blog. But I decided to do the ironing first and started ...After a while I got me a nice surprice! There was a set of bedclothes in the bottom of the pile and I'm not so pedantic that I would start making them. I only do the pillow cases.
Up in Finland I've got a mangle to use but here on Tenerife we sleep in creased quilt duvets and I think we sleep as good as in Finland.
Talking about Finland! My first mother in law was (don't know if she is still doing?) carefully ironing the underwears for her husband. They looked like brand new! And Clas' aunt was ironing the bills that her husband got from the customers when he was driving his taxi car. She didn't like him to give wrinkled change back to the customers. But that was in the old good days when people still got time ! Today I know some people that never use the iron!

New Years eve

We went for the second year in a row to Acapulco in Las Americas to celebrate the new year. This year together with Mick and Frances from England. The photos are taken by Frances, by the way.
It was a lovely night. I think Acapulco is the best place to go a new years eve. Country and Western Music, dance, funny outfits, balloons and stuff and the place was well decorated and cosy. And at twelve o' clock we all went out to look at the firework. Our friends Ray and Debbie know how to make a party. And the most of the guests at this place are Brittish and brittons have a "know how" when it comes to parties. Just look how the guests were dressed! Dolly Parton was there! Mimmi and Micky mouse and many others! It was a really nice evening and if we don't have to work next year we probably will be there again.
Earlier in the night we went for dinner to Restaurante Toro in Los Cristianos. The food was excellent, so was the service, and we can recommend the place to everybody!

Firework outside Acapulco