What do you need?

“All you need is something to do – something to love – something to look forward to.” I was told this as a young man, guess who haha. Then I heard it somewhere recently, I don’t recall where maybe a film or in a book, but it took me back to 1976 you probably read that series? I was bumming around in Spain and the Canary Islands and as we say up here in the North I had ‘nowt.’ It was literally hand to mouth, if we went fishing that day and caught something we could hawk it around the restaurants and buy our tea, yeah I know you posh people call it dinner, but I still like to have ‘me dinner at dinner time and me tea at tea time’ Anyway, back t’plot. I had something to love – my wetsuit which I usually spent most evenings repairing. The one below is the same but not the actual one and courtesy of https://www.coastwatersports.co.uk/blog/history-evolution-wetsuit-2/ If you remember, the master had scrounged it for me and it had seen better days. I had something to do – spearfishing and of course running up those damn Spanish mountains.

Photo by Luis Quintero on Pexels.com

I had something to look forward to – life in general really, but if I made enough money in the week it meant I could possibly take a senorita out for a tipple. I was very happy, life was simple. Now, consider that and consider a lot of people with money. The Kennedys, Howard Hughes, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson and Elvis. That’s just the real famous ones. So before you waste another £2 on a lottery ticket maybe you should ask yourself what is it you really want? Yeah I know I shouldn’t write a post on Sunday, its not my happiest day 🙂

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Flamenco and Palau de la Musica

Palau de la Musica Catalana, is where I chose to see Flamenco in Barcelona. It was a good choice and we did the tour in the afternoon, which was 20 Euro (yep my computer is so old it doesn’t have a Euro symbol). The talk was interesting and a great photo opportunity.This Art Nouveau hall was built between 1905 and 1908 it is the only concert hall in Europe to be lit entirely by natural light and some of the worlds greatest talents have played here, from Ella Fitzgerald to the London Philharmonic and what an organ!

The dancers were phenomenal, but surely all that stamping of the feet can’t be good for you? So I decided to have a gander on Google, 80.7% experienced metatarsal pain while dancing, and 84.1% presented with plantar hyperkeratosis. Plantar hyperkeratosis coincided with the presence of metatarsal pain in 67.04% of the feet studied, I never have much luck with Google, then it went onto Ballet Dancers. So I guess it’s a bit painful – there was nothing on there that said “Flamenco Dancers become crippled for life at the age of 25,” but I didn’t look on the Daily Mail website 🙂 So if you go to Barcelona and want to see some Flamenco I would recommend  Palau de la Musica Catalana, It’s 50 Euro for a good seat but how many times are you going to go? 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

News From Barcelona

Haha not really, do you think I’m Jon Snow or something, am I confusing News at Ten with Game of Thrones…..hmmm! Anyway we got to the Gothic Quarter which the ‘princess’ was keen on seeing….I don’t know……she has her reasons, best not to ask and just follow 😜. Well, we saw some stuff, you know like buildings and things. Now, I thought the Bridge of Sighs was in Venice? ( my geography is crap, how I got across Europe in a van I’ll never know) But as you can see there it is in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, I suppose it could be different one? I was expecting Goths and really interesting food, but I didn’t see any Goths and got no dinner, I think you lot might call that lunch, but I was informed that we ate on the plane. It’s hard being me, it always has been. The princess says it’s because I am cute, but not very clever. I don’t know about the rest of you but do you get confused by life? I’ve found Barcelona easier to navigate than London, I’m like Forest bloody Gump there 😂 Anyway, continuing my travel blog here’s some pictures of the Gothic Quarter 😀

Oh! This is me all dressed up to go out

And today we had a thunderstorm with rain all day 😀😀

Barcelona

Okay, Barcelona is the ‘princess’ place, it’s about 40 years since I was here and that was only to collect my post. It’s a travelling thing, if you wrote to someone when you were travelling in 1976 (yup remember letters?) you had to give them an address to write back to and we knew we would be passing through Barcelona on our way south (you’d have to have read SILH series for that to make sense) So arriving yesterday afternoon we went for a walk, now this took all afternoon and most of the night, about 12 miles according to the ‘Princess’s feet today. We kinda took a wrong turn on our way back to the hotel and walked an hour in the opposite direction, oh well. Sorted it today with map and Metro. So today we went to the Sagrada Familia. It’s a big church they’ve been building for about two hundred years.

Well c’mon you know this isn’t one of those intense, fact filled Travel Blogs 😂😂 But it was a bit impressive. Oh, almost forgot I had a great run down by the beach at 7am 😘😘 I’ll let you know if I see anything else interesting

Why I Started Dancing

You know what, it started with a little boys crush, yep, really. I was eight years old and on holiday in Scarborough (Benidorm of the 60’s) I was taken to the Black and White Minstrel Show you can see why it is no more. I fell in love with the girls, their costumes, their glamour, well as much as an eight year old can 🙂

https://charliecountryboy.wordpress.com/2017/12/20/live-to-dance-dance-to-live/

https://charliecountryboy.wordpress.com/2017/12/20/live-to-dance-dance-to-live/

https://charliecountryboy.wordpress.com/2017/12/20/live-to-dance-dance-to-live/

It never occurred to me to be a dancer, I was a Yorkshire lad and this was thirty five years before Billy Elliot  Me and me Mam (as we say up here) watched all the musicals, proper musicals I mean such as Fred and Ginger, Gene Kelly etc. It may have been nature or nurture, but dancing is what ‘they’ did and the same rule applied to  University, ‘they’ were not ‘us.’ We knew our place, work/school – pub/telly and Sunday dinner was the best you could expect, that’s why I left as soon as I could. I loved Rock’N’Roll as a kid and charged me mam 6d to watch my Elvis impersonations, but for years I denied myself the art of dancing, except at weddings. You’d have to call that jiggling, but boy could I jiggle and I jiggled with every lady that was willing.

But  I always wanted to Tango, again probably because of the movies, particularly  Antonio Banderas and not forgetting The Scent of a Woman So a few months ago we enquired at a local dance school. “Now then Mrs, we’d like t’learn Tango” (that’s how a Yorkshireman states that he would love to dance) A lovely lady suggested that we might want to learn the basics first, so off we trundled and very soon realised she was right, read  Barbara Tuckers post and you will know what I mean. Now we’re hooked with five dances under our belt. Of course I have a long way to go, I’m still more like the monster than the dancer. Is it worth it?  Here’s a post that will inspire you from  Carolyn Page Getcha dancing shoes on 😀😀

Book Cover Illustration & Design

When I saw this post I could see the cover of my book somewhere in there and thought it was definitely worth sharing, take a look and tell her what you think 🙏😀

Asha Illustrated

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Do You Still Play?(Part 2)

If your expecting something a little raunchy, sorry I wasn’t thinking of those type of games, or maybe I was and chickened out 😂 After last weeks post I got to thinking. Why do some of us swop hide and seek for manipulate and control I wonder? For some, manipulation is a game, certainly for the ones who perpetrate it (quite often men) and devastating to the victim (quite often women) so how do they get away with it? Many years ago the answer was simple – women were sex objects, treated as stupid and so it was their own fault. I can testify to this, I grew up in the 70’s.

Of course these days things are changing (much to the annoyance of the chauvinist Victorian Male) and we have learnt (well some of us have)  that women are in fact people, far from stupid and it is definitely not their fault. To be honest I always knew this. So why does it still happen? I read a post this week stating how some women would rather have someone than no one – interesting  – Is it the fear of being alone? – Could be – But could it be genetic? Years ago women knew their place, surely that would be passed down genetically? Ooops, along came the Suffragettes (other women’s movements are available, hurrah) and more and more women are becoming independent; could this be an instinct  passed down from generation to generation, so today we are seeing less and less of the male reliant, downtrodden woman and more independent, strong, single minded women. The problem is we don’t realise we are being manipulated and raising awareness is so very important, so I take my hat off to all those brave people that tell their stories, no matter how painful it may be.

http://theurbantwist.com/2016/11/10/can-michelle-obama-achieve-what-hillary-clinton-couldnt/

But, what’s going to happen to all the manipulators? Probably wind up in front of a computer screen with their trousers around their ankles, OMG sorry for that image. Of course women manipulate men; in fact I’ve often been manipulated, but that’s different, (c’mon ladies you know what I mean) walking down a street, arm in arm, pointing to a particular dress or piece of jewellery and commenting how lovely it is 😂

Do You Still Play?

I always loved games, as a kid the popular one was Hide and Go Seek (US version) But I prefered Kiss Catch which reminds me of Lil-Beth (the names have been changed to protect the…….not sure what she was at 10 years-old) Lil-Beth always told me where she was going to run to and when I caught her demanded her kiss. The idea was not to be kissed, who was playing who? Of course in later years the games changed, yup you know what I mean 😉 But these days my leopard skin thong is a little moth eaten and role play can end up reminiscent of a Carry On film 😉

Remember the excitement of playing Hide and Seek (UK version) or Kiss Catch? The thrill of the chase and the thrill of being discovered was the key. As we got older we expanded the game and called it dating. I see a lot of angst and joy on WordPress usually about love, after all it must be the most powerful emotion we are either blessed or cursed with. So here’s a theory; is cheating just an expansion of the dating game and dating an expansion of those playground games? Humans that cheat on their partners see it as a game; not understanding the hurt it causes because in reality they never grew up. For every Lil-Beth and Charlie in that playground all those years ago there were a multitude of Sue-Ellen’s and Jim-Bob’s that ran in opposite directions. Have a playful weekend folks 🙂

Day 2. GCI Empowerment Activities

Love this post, it’s so important to ensure young girls today have an equal opportunity, great scheme, please go and take a look 😀😀

Girls Corner

Good morning Lovelies, welcome to day 2 showcase of the activities of Girls Corner as we celebrate the International day of the Girl child under the Theme ” with her, a skilled workforce “. Hope you love them. Feel free to reblogg the posts please.

Thanks for stopping by. Blessed day ahead.

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Truth or Dare

How many times have you played this and it’s got a bit risqué? In all reality it’s for kids isn’t it? I’ll leave risqué to the young adults. Even so, do you remember the excitement when you finally had the chance to ask Sally-Jo how many times she’d kissed Jim-Bob and then dared her to kiss you 😀 (yes I know 1950’s American names, just thought they sounded better than Arthur and Agnes). Then of course Jim-Bob dared you to ask Sally-Joe if she would be your date and ole’ Sal blushed and looked at you with those big brown eyes and your heart fluttered. Of course there was the time when Jim dared you to challenge big Gunther to a fight and an hour later you were in the emergency room with that broken arm 😜.

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Downloaded from: https://pixabay.com/en/users/Annalise1988-7089643/

Is it sad that as we get older some of us lose that daredevil but naive attitude, in exchange for cynicism, because we have been let down, deceived, disappointed, manipulated and hurt? Maybe we should remember those days more often. When life was simple and all you had to worry about was whether or not you were going to get a kiss 😀