Humanism

[Jude]

Dear Norm,

Limbo dancing at 4 feet is a cinch when you're 5ft tall. Anything under that is a worry though. Men are much better at this since they aren't anatomically challenged in the chest department. Unfair advantage or what?

Jude

 

[Jude]

Dear Susie,

I forgot to ask - just WHAT is merenque dancing and how do you do this?

Jude

 

[Chesca]

Jude, here is a recipe for a merengue

First, you take yourself off to Marks & Sparks, purchase 16 individual fluffy white creations festooned with cream and bring them home. Gently remove them from the packet in the kitchen and distribute amongst the previously referred to broken shards of crockery, eggshells and assorted detritus decorating your floor. Then you turn up the Gypsy Kings, Bob Marley or whatever your particular bag and jump all over the little buggers in a wild frenzy worthy of a dervish! That, my dear friend, is a merengue.

Following this exorcism, you track down a local boy scout ask him if he would like to earn a tenner, throw him a mop and take yourself off for some Salsa lessons! Now, according to Delia, doesnt that involve lots of tomatoes and some Chillian or other........ ?

Norman, I have spoken to your constabulary re the unfortunate incident with the hammer and they have assured me there was no reference to a tanker but, in deference to your professional past were concerned that you may have, indeed, been one link short of an ANCHOR ....chain.

My pc has been out of action for the last day, it probably exploded after my tirade the other night, and I have been suffering withdrawal. I laughed like a drain when I caught up with this thread.

Anyway, Bruce I can't dance well either, but you can referee the proceedings and don't forget there is always recourse to steel toe caps on your dancing boots - either for avoiding sore toes or, if that is your want, a swift kick to an encroaching incompetent. I find them very effective and discretely fitted nobody can tell from my sequinned, peep-toe slingbacks.

Just off to M&S....

Continental kisses to you all
Chesca

 

[Jude]

Dear Chesca,

The merenque sounds right up my street...! I must definitely organise this event half an hour prior to our next CPN visit - they will be thrilled to have something genuine to complain about. I will order the salsa for their follow up visit - the sight of me dancing around the kitchen with a gorgeous Chiliian bedecked in tomato and sour cream should render them speechless, not to mention green with envy....

Jude

 

[susie]

Hi Jude
To merengue you take two meringues and while eating them,you wiggle your hips from left to right while strutting round the room! You can practise by standing on the spot and bending and straightening each knee alternatively to get the right hip swing. Please do not practise at the bus stop or you may be like Norman and have the local police after you!!!! It can only be describes as a stru taround the room and is best done with a good looking partner! AftToday has been one of those days when I've found it hard to bite my toingue with David,especially when I said dinner would be about six and he hovered for 10 minutes because he has a time phobia at the moment. What a joy to come and read all this mad posting. To get back to the main post, I've been looking up Humanis funerals and although I still have some religious belief, it all seems so logical and I think this is what David has planned on an Age Concern form. I shall go to bed tonight thinking of you all dancing away-either that or when I have my usual awake spell in the night,you can dance me all back to sleep!
Susie

 

[Chesca]

Dear Susie

Thanks for the merengueries. If only I'd known earlier! I've had to arrange for a sand blaster for the kitchen floor as all the local boy scouts are on standby for duty in Iraq!

I would clean it myself but following Norman's advice, went to B&Q this aft and purchased some wooden poles, limbo dancing for the use of! Well, I have to tell you............from the traction ahoist my infirmary bed.... I don't recommend it!

To the tune of the steel band chiming away - live, by the way and hired from my local community centre (no half measure thought I, get the feel Ches and move with the groove) I commenced my gyrations learned only from rare sightings of Judith Chalmers somewhere in the Carribean.

I should say, that prior to this performance, and bearing in mind Jude's caution about the female anatomical disadvantage, I considered, in much the same manner as the handicapper rates a horse for the Grand National, the limbo pole should be placed 6 of our english inches above the regulation 4 feet. After much ado, this was agreed. Anyway to the first roll of number one drummer and something about islands in the sun, I threw my head back in wild abandon and assumed a quasi crab position.

Encouraged by the cheers of the neighbourhood who had collected to witness this apparation I sallied forth. First, my back locked, shortly thereafter both my hip and knee joints locked, and thus I fell to the ground. As the paramedics trawled me away on the end of a hoist, limbs in situ as found, some local trollope was heard to say that I might have been better applying for entry to a Manx pageant as the live emblem. (as an aside, never underestimate your mother's warnings concerning clean underwear; fortunately I had dressed suitably for the occasion). You can laugh, mustered I, but did anybody tell you that you're actually playing on a couple of old oil drums! And your 'islands' was sharp. There was almost a festival atmosphere as I left.

Now, I have no wish to cast whatever those flowers are -nasturtiums, wossnames or something - but why is it just happens that Norman was visited by his local constable when putting into practice a suggestion I made concerning morse code, a neighbour and a fence, that I end up as the Three Legs of Man exhibit in A&E? Could it be that the height of the pole should actually be 9 feet and 6 of our english inches and he set me up?

My next venture is to explore the genre of the Pole dancer and in keeping with my mission I have enrolled on a course in Polish. Those B&Q poles will not go to waste! Norman, please note.

So from my NHS repose, trolley number 7, corridor 2B, I wish you a sweet good night's rest; mine should come with a couple of mogadon and a lot of horlicks.

Many kind wishes that your tomorrow is a kinder day
Chesca

I've just had a thought........what about the Tarantella!? Nah! I'm seriously anachraphobic.

 

[Jude]

Dearest Chesca,

My dear, I just KNEW that limbo dancing would be the death of you!

Don't you ever listen to that Norman again.... Once you're out of traction in a couple of months' time, we really do need to hobble down to the end of Norm's garden and just find out what exactly these faeries are really saying to him. It can't be good advice, can it? The only people I know of that are good at limbo dancing were Houdini, Matahari in her younger days, and a couple of 10 year old pygmy Olympic gymnasts - and even then under close supervision with medical backup on call.

Now then, since the boyscouts are otherwise engaged, perhaps you could send me the phone number of your local sand blaster, as soon as you're well enough, that is. I had a trial run over the weekend with the meringues and stuff and the kitchen floor is getting a wee bit greasy, what with all the cream and broken plates. Can I borrow your sling backs too? I've got splinters in my feet. Once I've had these surgically removed, I should be in a better position to resume my dancing programme.

The Salsa event is also causing problems. No worries with the sour cream, taco chips and sauce - Sainsbury's have been very good about it really. I've also been on to the local date line to try and arrange a Chilian, but they're pretty hard to come by - big demand probably... Failing that, I thought I'd get my husband over from Indonesia. Well, he'll do at a pinch I guess. He does look a lot like a North American Indian heavy weight boxer, but I'm a bit worried about his waist length hair. He's so VAIN about it and I'm wondering if the sour cream will mess it up? He hasn't been to England before and he doesn't believe that we have things here like shampoo, conditioner and combs. He also wants to bring 3 cwt of rice with him as hand luggage.

I didn't realise just how expensive these dancing programmes would turn out to be. Also the cost of reconstructive surgery and hospitalisation might be a bit on the high side later on. Perhaps you could advise me if you have a decent life assurance policy. Failing that, could you respond to my new thread of 'Who Carers for the Carers' as a matter of urgency.

with best wishes and hopes for your speedy recovery,

Jude

 

[Chesca]

My very dear Jude (not)

You mean that numbered amongst your many friends and acquaintances are several pygmy Olympic gymnasts and you kept schtum? Do you know how difficult it was to find the necessary tools for my limbo construction amongs the obstacles presented by a visit to my loft? I was only saying to JJ during my search, that what I really needed was some help from a couple of pygmy Olympic gymnasts. I don't know...As me granny would say, first self, second self and if there was three of ya it'd be third self! Could you be planning to upstage my efforts by taking private limbo in Papua new Pygmy? I'll think about letting you have a loan of my slingbacks verrrrrry carefully.

Ha, but I've cornered the market in handsome Chileans via the dateline, as they mentioned that you seem to be doing very nicely, thank you, what with a fine figure of a husband and all the rice a woman could eat at one sitting. About time Susie and I got a look in.

As I also have extremely long hair .....and a face lake a north american heavy weight boxer......I can recommend sour cream applied and wrapped in clingfilm is a very suitable and nutritious balm for the split ends. By way of an introduction to the English way of life, you could do worse than introduce your beloved to us all at Norman's cussathon garden party prior to commencement of the dancing for which we have all been assidiously practising. The rice will come in very useful for a cold Salsa with any left over to be used for the matrimonial events that will undoubtedly follow this romantic evening. We'll all chip in with the excess baggage charge for the 3cwt.

I thank you for your good wishes for my recovery, with a level of suspicion at your motives. Doctors rounds and Dr Imfrom Santiago is fast approaching........eat your heart out!

Chesca ...................(mmm Mrs Dr Santiago..... has a nice ring to it. Must check if he owns a pair of patent leather cuban heeled dancing pumps.)

 

[Norman]

Chesca
he wears sandals with big ugly feet and fungus infected toe nails,to say nothing of the athletes foot
Norman

 

[Chesca]

Norman

I've just laughed so much, even JJ asked if that was Norman writing again! A damned good old belly laugh, the kind you can only do in private - in a plain brown wrapper!.

Speaking of brown paper, hope your chest's improving.

Love and chuckles
Chesca

 

[Chesca]

Norman, Yikes and gadzooks, you might have something there. Just past doctors changing room and spied a pair of pigeon-toed socks sticking out of his pumps.
Chesca

 

[snuffyuk]

Brucie
My mum was born in a house on The Green, Llandaff.
snuffy.

 

[Brucie]

Hi Snuffy

ah, Cardiff always will be special to me. Part of my childhood was spent in Newport and I often went to Cardiff, if only en route for a bucket and spade adventure at Barry Island.

Then I met Jan and she had been to the Cardiff College of Music and Drama and the University. As part of her studies she had played organ at Llandaff.

We were married in Neath but then Nina and her husband drove us to Cardiff where we spent the first night of our marriage. We were so tired and so excited at being together that we had a quick meal then immediately fell fast asleep, waking late the next morning and having to miss breakfast so we could catch our train to London.

I have often wondered whether we could return to claim that unused breakfast!

If I did so now, with my luck, the bacon and eggs would be the ones cooked back in 1968, still sitting on the breakfast table, covered in dust.

And that same Nina, Jan's best friend and my fabulous new partner, comes from Cardiff.

 

[carol]

Just to let you know Brucie, my son went to the Welsh College of Music Cardiff, now renamed Royal Welsh College of Music, and he has played in Llandaff Cathedral on many occasions. I think we live fairly close to one another, as you mentioned Farnham in a previous posting!

Best wishes.

Carol

 

[Brucie]

Hi Carol

small world, eh?

Yes, I'm 9 miles south of Farnham just off the A287.

 

[carol]

I'm the other side of Farnham on the A287!

Carol

 

[Jude]

Dear Carol,

I'm on the A281 near Cranleigh. We've almost got a quorum here.

Jude

 

[Norman]

Jude
you haven't told them that you live with a load of old sailors have you?

best of all things to you
Norman.

 

[carol]

Hello Jude,

Small world, us all living within a few miles of each other.

I do remember on a previous posting of yours that you mentioned (I think) that your father had lived in Haslemere. My son lives in Haslemere, a small Grade 2 listed cottage on Lower Street, would your father be lucid enough to remember the cottages and properties on the high pavement.

Best wishes.

Carol

 

[Jude]

Dear Carol,

My father's long term memory is a sharp as a bell usually. We had a pretty awful day today though. He used to live in Shottermill, Lion Lane to be exact. Haselmere is a lovely place isn't it?

Jude