Busy, Busy...

We are busy working in the studio the whole day.
I am down loading the lyrics for the new songs I have got and will start doing rehearsal of them now. Clas got the mastering job for Sheilas new CD ready a while ago.
Sheila is a country singer from England and Clas has recorded her first recording here in our studio in Los Cristianos.

I am going to release a new CD this autumn too. Clas says we are going to make a CD only with me again when I have got so many new nice songs.
It's going to be pure country and this time with a little bit more of the newer sound like the country artists in America sound today. It will be more speedy music and rock and roll tempo than the other six CD:s we have made so far.
I have already started singing some of the new songs in the nights and the audience seams to like them.

We have released two new CD:s per year since we started performing on Tenerife.
It's a lot of work! When we released the last one in February I thought we are going to have a break from recordings, but I was so wrong.
If we just can find songs we probably will continue releasing at least one CD per year in the future. We'll see.


We hope to get the CD ready before Christmas and that means we will be very busy this autumn when we only have got one day off per week.
We also have plans for a line dance DVD, but my illness have kept it on hold when I have been so weak. I hope I will be well soon. I haven't been dancing much the last six weeks which means I probably have lost some of the steps.
My voice is almost like normal already and I am so happy I can start doing rehearsal of new songs again.

We have got many E-mails from people who are on the way to Tenerife in September.
It's looks to become a busy month and many are line dancers which means the dance floor will be crowded. Oh, how I look forward seeing you all. Welcome to Tenerife!

The feminism is just a revolt!

Clas is very special. He often tells me many times a day how cute he thinks I am and hugs me etc.
I have become so used to it that I can't live without it anymore.
I like it and I need it! I have never been asking for it, but his care has made me addicted and I try to give the same kind of care back to him.

I think it's quite important to get confirmations from our partners. We need hugs and kisses every day and encouraging words and then we feel more harmonic and lucky.
When you have a husband who cares about you it's really easy to let him make the decisions when it comes to the big questions in your daily life together. Then you know you can trust him and he will always make the decisions that he thinks is the best for both of you and you can just relax. I always turns to him if there is something I wonder about.
It's important to not force things through if you not are in agreement.
It will just cause more problems and mess everything up in the end. That's something we have learned.

He,he! I know my statement would drive the feminists crazy!
I think the equality between the sexes is something good, but I also think some of the feminists have gone too far when they mean they don't need any men and try to do everything on their own.

It's understandable that there are feminists today when so many men shirk responsibility in their families. Or do the men give up the responsibility when they aren't allowed to make any decisions? That's the question!
Some women have to make all the decisions, they have to take care of the children and the home on their own, and in addition they have to work full time to get the both ends meet. Of course these women can become embittered by criticism.

I think it's the society that has caused movements like the feminism to rise up.
Before the ladies were at home taking care of the children and the men were out working and they both did their share and were in agreement. The children felt much more safe then when they knew there will always be somebody waiting for them in the home.
But the materialism of today and the desire of making a career have pushed the women out on the labour market too early and their burden gets too heavy.
It's tough to both take care of the home and the children in the same time as you've got a work!

You might think that I am old-fashioned but I think it was better before when the men were allowed to be leaders in the family (not dictators!). Everything was more harmonic!
Clas and I live more in the old-fashioned style than in the new style and I like it very much.

The ideology of feminism. They say "we can do it" and
they have to do everything on their own. Stupid!

Our Wok - Sushi night

We went early for dinner tonight to the Asiatic Cuisine and wok restaurant close to where we live.
The food was nice but we got so many different dishes that I couldn't eat them all.
I didn't have any Wok at all even when it's included in the price.
I like this restaurant when you can just pick out which meat and vegetables etc you like to have and then they wok, barbecue or deep fry it for you.
They have also got a lot of different cold dishes and you can taste as many as you like till you get too stuffed.
I don't think you can have from all dishes in the same night when there are so many.

I continued taking photos of all my plates and Clas said;
-You are not going to show all your plates on your blog. Are you?
-Yes, of course I will show them! I said.
-Oh, the people will think you don't do anything else than eat!
-Doesn't matter for me! It's their problem not mine!

To be honest I didn't eat all of it. Some of the pieces I left on the plate.

I will tell you a secret:
Clas had more plates than me! *smile*

My dear husband.


Me.


I had sushi on my first plate and an Asiatic soup.


My second plate.

My third plate.

To bring the dinner to a close I had three different deserts.
The cheese cake in the middle was really lovely.

Our day off

It's our day off today.
I have been busy doing the laundry and the dishes and now I'm listening to the new songs that I found yesterday.
Clas has been out to some of the hotels where we get advertising about our venues.
Tonight we have decided to go out and have a Sushi dinner.

It's very nice weather outside, about 28 degrees and no clouds, but I will spend the rest of the day here in the studio looking for more songs and checking out some of the latest line dances.
There is also a big pile of clothes in the bedroom that need to be ironed but I don't have any inspiration for ironing right now.
Clas is mixing the CD for the country singer from England.
I will put up some photos from our Sushi night later.
Have a nice weekend!

New songs

Happy!

I have been looking for new songs the whole afternoon and have found four that I like to start sing. Now they just have to be passed by Clas.
Sometimes he don't like the songs I like and then I can't start singing them.
We always try to take songs that both of us like when we have to stand them maybe for a long time.

One of the songs is a really nice jive song with Reba McEntire and I am almost sure he will like it.
We need it specially for the Norwegians who love to jive.
We haven't almost seen any Scandinavians since the end of April and I start missing them so much. They love to dance and when they come to see us the dance floor always gets busy.

Hopefully we will get a bigger dance floor this winter. It's not fun when everybody don't get space to dance.
The best would be to have two dance floors. One for line dance and one for couple dance but the Lewinski terrace hasn't got space enough for that.

I feel much better today and my voice wasn't hoarse at all this morning. I have been singing the whole afternoon while I have been searching for new songs.
Maybe not so cleaver, but I can't help it when I feel so happy now when I start getting better.
I wish I had got these medicines earlier and I wouldn't have become so hoarse every night. But it's better late than never!

I really look forward to go and sing to Lewinski tonight. It's so fun when we have got so many new songs this summer. Many of them are from the new country scene and when the winter season starts we have to cut down on them again when we get an older audience.
*smile* I don't mean that the audience is really old in the winter time, like it sounds, but now during the summer the most of the guests have been in an age of 0-40 years.

As soon as I get totally free from the weakness I will start the training again and the line dancing, of course.
Right now I have had to change my diet when I can't eat anything with a high Ph-value.
But I am loosing weight every day! I almost have to force myself to eat because I don't feel hungry at all.

Clas tried on the jeans today and they fitted him perfectly! I am so happy!

Shopping day

Believe me or not, I woke up at nine o' clock this morning! Isn't that a miracle?
(I mean Wednesday morning. It's already Thursday.)

Clas has been recording a female singer from England, Sheila Martin, today in our little studio and I decided to go out shopping while they were working with her CD.
It's not fun to have a lot of people around when you are doing a recording and have to concentrate. Everything you do in the studio is going to be heard by many people again and again.

I had a lovely shopping day. First I had a breakfast at a restaurant, a soup, and then I went to Mapfre to bring them some papers.
After that I started scanning the shops and I carefully checked out all the new clothes that have arrived now when I for ones had a plenty of time.

I bought a pair of jeans to Clas. Hopefully they will fit! He hasn't tried them on yet.
They are in a nice steel blue color and that is exactly a color he needs when I have already got some outfits in a matching shade.

This is what I bought for myself:

I have been looking for a white watch for a long time and today I finally bought this one from Stradivarius that is one of my favorite shops here on Tenerife.
I also bought four brass bracelets there that will fit well to a brass belt that I have got earlier.

This black little thing I bought at Sara.
It's so cute on and I like it very much.
Nice to wear now in the daytime when it's 28-30 degrees.

I also bought this dress at Sara.
The material is silk and I will use it when I'm off the stage when it doesn't look country.
It has got wide sleeves and I thought it looked so properly on that I just had to buy it.
It's very seldom you see me in clothes that has got suck a lot of patterns.

I have been looking for beige shirts, that wouldn't be too thick, for a long time without any results. Now I found one today and I am so lucky.
I have already tried it on at home and it fits nice into two different outfits that have had to wait when they demand thin beige shirts.

The "bugging" couple

Jive is called "bugg" in Swedish. Imagine so wrong it can be when I start mixing the two languages and write in Swenglish!
Bugging in English means, as an example, to listen secretly to somebody on the phone.
The right way of saying the headline would be "The jiving couple".

Sometimes when I get tired in the nights I start mixing the different languages I speak and then I maybe would say "The bugging pareja", in this case.
Sounds crazy? Move down to Tenerife and live here for four years, like we have done now, and see how confused you can get when it's in the middle of the night! *smile*
Even some of the tourists who come to the island, for one or two weeks, continue saying "Gracias" to people first when they get back home to their own country. It's not easy!

Here you can watch Mattias and Pia "bugging" at Lewinskis.
Guess who is a proud mother!

More medicine

About three days ago I started feeling very weak again and I got a pressure over the chest and fever and my throat was hurting more than ever.
I have also become a little bit hoarse every day the last four weeks specially in the nights.
Even during the vacation when I didn't sing anything I became hoarse every now and then!
I thought from the beginning that I would soon become better and didn't do anything about it and we have been playing like normal in the nights.
But today I decided to call the hospital to see if I could change my next appointment and get there earlier.

The lady who answered the phone told me first that there are not any free appointments before the 5th of October but when she heard that I belong to The Mapfre Insurance Company she said she will do one more check and she found an appointment already the 8th of September.
After a while she changed her mind again and said I maybe should talk to the doctor himself and told me to call again at 3.30 in the afternoon.

When I called the hospital again a Spanish talking lady answered and when I started asking for my doctor, talking English, she directly gave over to a nurse who was speaking the language perfectly.
After talking a few words with her she told me to hold on and suddenly a third person was in the phone and she talked perfect Swedish! Guess if I was surprised! What a service! Swedish is my mothers language.

I told her about my problem and she told me to hold on for a while when she would like to talk to the doctor.
Back on the line she told me he like to see me directly and asked if I could come over to the hospital. I promised to get there as quickly as possible.

I hurried to have a shower and to put on a makeup and jumped into a taxi.
When I got there the procedure started again. The service was really amazing!
I just signed a paper and then I was directly taken into the doctor without having to queue.

The doctor checked me and gave me new medicines (reflux) that I now have to take for two weeks.
I will also continue taking the inhalator powder that I got before.
It took me about 45 minutes from I left the home until I was back in the home again with the new medicines in the bag! I am really impressed!

The health care works very well here on Tenerife and I have never seen such a good service anywhere else in the world even when I have belonged to other insurance companies before.
Even the American health care ends up in the second place when I think about Tenerife and Spain!

If my throat isn't well after two weeks they will take me in for an other check up. Then I will have to swallow a camera so that they can see how it looks inside my throat. I hope I will be well now because that's something I don't like to do!
Please, remember me in your prayers so that I don't have to do it.
They will not put me to sleep but I will get some kind of anaesthetic before they do it.
Is there anyone who knows how it is to swallow the camera? Please, let me know.

We are going to continue playing like normal when the medicine hopefully will make me better and better every day now.

Nice lips?

It seams to be very popular now, among the young female bloggers in Sweden, to pout out the lips on every photo. Some of them have injected botox or restylane to get them to stick out a little bit more. The ones who haven't got any injection do everything to look like they have got it.

Some months ago they started saying "pruuune" every time somebody took a photo of them to be sure the lips were in the right look. An idea that from the beginning was made up by the Olsen twin sisters in Hollywood.

How are the young ladies of Sweden going to look after let's say a few years?
They have for a long time been famous for the light hair...but are they going to be known in the future as the "botox lip ladies"?

The photo below is showing how many of them prefer to keep the lips on their blogs. They try to look like they have botox to be accepted. Crazy!
Some of them have become very popular through their blogging and they are the ones who are creating the trends in the country right now. The message they give to the young readers is that this is how you should look.

He, He! I took this photo before we went to Lewinski tonight, but it's not easy to get the right look! I wonder how much training they have been doing to get the lips right on every photo?
Probably been standing in front of the mirror for hours!
I am pouting too much on this photo (there are wrinkles above the lips... or maybe I need some botox?) and my eyes are staring!
No! I'm not going to accept the trend! I prefer smiling lips on the photos.

El Mego

El Mego is a quite big chain selling cosmetics here in Los Cristianos.
You can see their shops everywhere.
When we went from Fados I went to the shop that is in our neighborhood and bought a new concealer from Yves Saint Laurent and a fresh balancing lotion from Estee Lauder.
Both are very nice products that I have used for a long time.

Inside the shop.

Before you put on the lotion with a cotton pad you need to clean the face
with the cleansing milk of the same series.

The new beach walk

Here's a photo of the new beach walk in Los Cristianos. Isn't it beautiful?
And there are hundreds of sofas to sit on.
The wall on the left side is also benches you can sit on!

I wonder when this awful house will be taken away?
It really puts everything on shame!

Our breakfast lunch

We can say we are back into the normal routine already.
I went to bed about three thirty last night and Clas about a couple of hours later and today we woke up at two o'clock in the afternoon.

He, he! I have no problem to tell you about it because for us it really sounds normal, but I know some people get jantelaw problems when they hear it!
They think you have to go to bed at least before one o'clock and get up about nine or ten, but they don't have any experience of how it is to be entertainers and we don't take much notice about it.

Nobody of us liked to make the breakfast (maybe it's called lunch at this time?) and finally we decided to go out and have a restaurant to make it for us.
We went to Fados, a restaurant where we have been many times before. We always order the same when we go there namely Hawaii sandwiches and an avocado salad.

Me outside restaurant Fados.


My Cowboy.


Our breakfast-Lunch. I decided to not have all of the white bread because it contains a lot of carbohydrates.


The view at Fados.


A looki- looki man sold stuff outside the restaurant.

A couple of Timeshare reprecentatives were there trying to catch new costumers and we got plenty of entertainment during our stay there.

Grand Prix Valencia

Oh what a boring race! It was like to watch the painting dry! Not many overtakings.



Massa won. Second was Hamilton and Kubica number three.
Kimi had to stop at lap forty six when the engine did explode and there was an accident when he went into the last pit stop and one of the technicians was injured.
Massa also got problems in the last pit stop when he was unsafely released and almost drove into Sutil and got a reprimand and a fine of 10.000Euro.
It wasn't a good day for Ferrari.
Next race will be the seventh of September in Belgium.

A nice start

The first night at Lewinski was a good night.
The sound was nice and.. Yes! We had a sound check before the dinner.
Clas said like always that we don't have to have it, but I told him it's no question about it when I am going to have a check anyhow. *smile*
But I think he was right tonight because the sound was nice already from the beginning and we wouldn't have had to check it. But it feels much better for me to go up to the stage and start singing when I know how it will sound. Specially when we many times don't sound normal in the first songs before he gets everything tuned right.

The audience tonight seamed to be fans of country music.
They were all sitting and listening carefully to every song and looked at us, and sometimes they started singing along and clapping hands.

I like these kind of nights when we get all the attention from the audience. It's not fun to play when people are sitting and discussing around the tables behaving like we are not there.
It happens very seldom but when it does we feel just like elevator music and we don't speak much when it's like talking to a wall.

The most frustrating nights are when people choose a table close to the stage and then sit and talk very loudly to each other almost screaming because of the high volume.
We can see on the other guests, who like to listen to the music, that they feel disappointed when they have to listen to a mix of our music and the talk from the loudly table. For us it's difficult to speak between the songs when we are so interrupted that we almost can't hear what we think in our brains.
Sometimes some of the guests start making wry faces toward the table and maybe like us to do something about it.
It's not easy when we can't tell them to be more quiet or to change table. The only thing we can do is to take up the volume until the speakers almost jump down from the stands. But there's a risk of doing it when the police probably will show up after a while telling us to take it down.
They have visited us four times so far!

This is a quite common problem in the wintertime.
Many tourists come to the island the same time year after year and they get new friends over here. Of course they like to talk when they finally meet on their nights out. But the best would be if there would be a free table for them not so close to the speakers. Then they could speak to each other like normal when our sound volume normally isn't too high.

Qualification in Valencia

I watched the qualification race today and Massa got the pole position.
Number two is Hamilton and Kubica is number three.
My guy Kimi Räikkönen starts as number four.

I hope all the best for Kimi and it would be very nice if he could pass at least Hamilton in the beginning of the race! Then I would be satisfied!
Hamilton has got too many points already and it would be fun to see somebody else score full points for a while. *Sending a smile to Paul in England*

Alonso said in an interview today that he expects safety cars tomorrow. Sounds nasty!
In that point of view I, of course, wish everybody the best when it's never fun if somebody gets injured.

It's the first time in the history that there is a race in Valencia which means the track is a new experience for all the drivers.
Don't miss it out tomorrow!

Back to work

I have been planning the play lists the whole day and done rehearsal of some of the new songs we started singing before we went on vacation.

Clas has been at Lewinski putting up the sound system out on the terrace. He always likes to do it alone when he thinks I would just mess everything up. I am not good at technical things.

I hope we will get a nice sound directly from the start tonight when I hate to sing in the same time as he tries to tune it in. Then the sound of the bass and the treble come and go and I have sometimes had to sing the first song without any echo or almost without hearing my own voice.
He has a sound check when he puts everything up but I seldom know how my part sounds before we start which feels quite stressing when I can't tell him what's the matter with my sound in the same time as I sing.
When we get to Lewinski tonight I will be very hard on him if I don't get a sound check before we start eating the dinner.
Let's see how it goes! *smile*

Our last day of the vacation

Pia and Mattias left last night and now our home feels so empty.
It has been so lovely to have them here and I think their visit went too quickly.
Mattias has got one more week of vacation before he starts his work again as IT-support for the government.
Pia is studying Special pedagogic at the Faculty of pedagogics in Vasa and starts gaining practical experiences as a trainee at the workers institute (Vasa Arbis) in the beginning of September. Arbis is an institute with a wide variety of languages, handicrafts, music, sports courses etc.

We will now start to get back to the normal routines.
I have to go back to the diet and the exercising and when we start working tomorrow we also will have to return to the late night habits and the late mornings.

Clas is now preparing a barbecue on the balcony and after the dinner we probably will go and see Ray and Debbie as it is their last night at Lewinski.

Wednesday - Teide & Masca Valley

It's Thursday today and the last day for Mattias and Pia on the island.
They are leaving tonight by Spanair through Madrid.
There was a terrible accident in Madrid yesterday when a Spanair plan, on the way to our neighbor island Gran Canaria, crash landed after take off and 153 passengers died.
It's not going to be fun for them to fly home now, but we established a fact when we were talking about it, that their plane will probably be more checked than ever now after the accident.
Which means the risk of something going wrong will be lower than normal.

Yesterday, Wednesday, we went up to Teide and down to the Masca Valley.
Here's some photos from our island trip:

Mattias and Pia in the backseat.

Me at one of the biggest Pine trees of Tenerife which is on the way up to Teide.
It's 46,3 meter high. A similar tree on the other side of the road is 56 meter high!


Teide in the background. It's 3917 meter high and the highest mountain of Spain.


Clas found a nice place to rest.


Some of the lava look like big cow cakes like you can see on this photo.


The Masca Valley.


A big fire was laid waste last summer in the valley and you can see on the trees how close the fire was to this restaurant where we had a lunch.


Many of the palm trees in the valley were burned and the trunks are black.


Strolling in the valley.


Many lizards are living in Masca.

Tuesday - Alcampo

Clas rented a car yesterday and today we went up to Alcampo in La Laguna for shopping.
I bought among a lot of other things a skirt, two vests and a blouse.
Tomorrow we are going up to Teide (the vulcano of Tenerife) and down to the Masca Valley.

The cashier told me I'm not allowed to take photos. I didn't know that and this is the only photo I took.

Monday - Fondue night

We had a fondue night last night. We were eating for a couple of hours and then we all were so stuffed that we couldn't have one single piece more.

It was still daylight when we started the dinner at 8 o'clock.

When the meat is ready and you take it out from the pot you dip it in a sauce.

About one hour later.

After the dinner Mattias and Pia were teaching us how to make banana tasting coffee shots.
They tasted very nice.

Sunday - Mexican Coffee

Mattias and Pia went shopping to the Sunday Market in the morning.
Tonight we have had a dinner on our balcony.
I made the fillet steak of pork with the mint tasting glace sauce that I have been blogging about before and they said they liked it very much.
After the dinner we made Mexican Coffee like you can see on the photos.

Friday - On the beach.

We have been on the beach all day long. It was really hot and we have all become a little bit burned even when we used sun protections.
Mattias, Pia and Clas took dips in the sea every now and then but I prefer to stay on the beach.
I don't like the salty water and to swim around where it's a lot of people when I don't know if somebody have been urinating in the water. I think it could be the same as swimming in a sewer and who would like to do that?
I don't swim in pools either or in big bath houses like Tropic Landia in Vasa, Finland.
The world is filled with people who act in a disgusting way! Just look how sweaty all are when they jump into the sea and I think they have found excrements some times in the most of the pools! Ugh!!

Tonight we are going by taxi up to a mountain village called Adeje for a Spanish dinner.
We will order a lot of different plates to give Pia and Mattias an insight of the Spanish cuisine.
It will be different Spanish sausages first in small pieces just to have a taste. Then we will have a nice crispy salad made of vegetables from the island. Then papas arrugadas made in the oven with different herbs and the famous garlic chicken a la Adeje and pork meat on sticks and ribs. Then in the end homemade Tiramisu and we will of course drink vine from the north of Tenerife.

You maybe wonder how my diet is going? I tell you! It has left for the moon!
But I will continue again next week.
Maybe it sounds like we are guzzling terribly, but it's not as bad as it sounds when it's only about small portions everything we eat.
Here on Tenerife it's quite common to mix a lot of different meats and fishes and plates in the same meal when all the different plates are only in the size of the small national tapas.
We are quite used to this kind of style and think a normal menu with only one type of meat or fish is quite boring. That's for tight people!
We like to eat dinners that are made by creative chefs who are not afraid of trying out new taste sensations and who makes a show of every dinner. It really puts embellish into the daily life!

Mattias and Pia swimming in the Atlantic Ocean.

Clas on the beach.

Wednesday - Thai menu

This is a photo from Wednesday night when we were out eating a Thai menu that is very nice.
First you get a soup which is my favorite. Then you get salad, springrolls, garlic chicken wings, an Satay meat sticks.
Then you get rice with four different types of meat dishes. It's chicken, pork, beef and fish. Everybody can choose what they want to have or take a little of everything.
Guess if we were stuffed! It's like eating a seven course meal.

After the meal we went to Lewinski to see Ray and Debbie and Mattias and Pia were dancing `bugg´which they do very well when they have been to classes to learn it.

Clas, Pia and Mattias.

Debbie.

Ray and me.