My Wonderful World

Pocket Powerhouse Brings Down the House

Posted by Travel Bug in November 11, 2009

Friday 6th November, Aotea Centre, Auckland city. 4′ 11″, stunningly gorgeous with lungs that could extinguish a forest fire – Elaine Paige, Britain’s darling of the West End, showed a capacity crowd what singing was all about.

Backed by a 10 piece orchestra led by her incredible musical director on piano, Ms Paige sang, joked, danced and acted her way through a versatile repetoire spanning her career of the last 40 years, from some of the most loved musical and variety shows, beginning with her first ever solo performance in the stage show, Hair, when in the absence of both the leading lady and her understudy she was plucked from the chorusline – lounging at the local – to stand in, terrified and unprepared.

It must have been okay because 40 years later here she is in Auckland for her second visit and joking, “Auckland is one of those cities you have to visit twice, once on the way UP and once on the way DOWN. Seriously, it’s good to be here,” she added to the delight of the audience, who clearly also thought it was good that she was here.

How does so much dynamic fit into such a small space? Who knows, but she is certainly an amazing bundle of versatile talent. Her Edith Pilaff lifted the audience to rapture. With a wig and a stance it was like watching a metamorphosis on stage and the voice – so very very like the little Parisian urchin. Eva Peron was another fascinating study in looks, body language, voice. The crowd loved it.

From the moment Ms Paige stepped onto the stage dressed in sleek silver coat and black tights she was ours, she never held back an ounce of energy or of her great personality. What a magical little minx = she was the whole package – humour, wit, song, dance and she captivated the audience from beginning to end with not a single idle moment.

At the end, like the true professional she is she returned to the standing audience’s demands again and again and again and again – with grace, good humour and saving probably the very best to last even though she had to be wilting after two hours of solid full-on performance.

When she finally departed it took several minutes for the audience to cease their cheering and clapping and to realise it was finally time to go.

As we straggled out, laughing and breathless, the general consensus could be heard all around – `Wonderful performer,’ `Wonderful show,’ `When is she coming back?’

If you ever get the chance to see Ms Paige in action, make sure to take it, you will be inspired…

My Wonderful World continued…

Posted by Travel Bug in May 25, 2009

I awoke this morning with a revelation.
The time I have will one day be at an end.
AN END? Like, one day I won’t be here any more?
That’s a pretty daunting thought, one most of us really don’t want to think about too much. But it’s an uncompromising fact. Life does not go on forever – at least on this earth it doesn’t.
I lay in bed thinking about this. I didn’t have much choice because once the train of thought had begun it wouldn’t stop. So at some stage, I thought, there will be things I haven’t done, said, or experienced because I’ll have run out of time. Shudder.
That got me out of bed. Fast. There was no time to waste lying around doing nothing. Every moment had suddenly become important.
I have always thought our world is a wonderful place and it was becoming more wonderful by the moment as I considered a time when I would no longer be a part of it. No time left to make a difference. No time to do all those wierd and wonderful things on the Bucket list I’d started a couple of new years ago. Another frightening thought – I’d used up two years just like that, without a thought to my mortality and making sure every moment counted.
So now what?
Well, now that the wheels are turning in a certain direction there’s no stopping it. I’m thinking about all the little things that dictate how we  live our lives and more aware than ever of the importance of each day, each moment - how they are gifts to be treasured and thankful for.
I wonder how I would feel if I woke one morning knowing it was to be my last day on earth? Ooooh, that’s a bit scary. I’d be gutted, of course and I really wouldn’t want to know.  Already the flood of regret is flowing over me, shaming me. All those things I said I wanted to achieve and didn’t; the people in my life I said I would spend more time with and didn’t; how the trivia of life has ruled me when what’s really important are the people and those small everyday experiences we take for granted.
A small example. The time I and the girls in the office I once worked in, threw ourselves into an en masse weight loss binge. It began when one of the group returned, after two months leave, a slimmer model of her former self.
That’s it! we all cried, no longer able to ignore the extra kilos we had gained over a rather puddingy winter. Not good enough, we chanted, it must be dealt with. So off we all trotted to the local Weight Watchers’ meeting, ignoring the fact that we’d all been there before – more than once – and ended up, months later, with the kilos stacked back on plus a bit more for good measure.
It’s so true. VERY few of my acquaintance have managed to keep it off permanently. And that includes me. I’ve been a weight loss yoyo since my last child was born, nearly 35 years ago! Where will it all end?
Obviously not the way I’ve been doing it. Not by fretting and weighing and counting points and doing a late afternoon mad dash along the beach so I can have a glass of wine that night.
To be frank, no matter how determined I have been at the beginning, long term IT HASN’T WORKED!!
So, back to my revelation. If a day is a gift then shouldn’t we be grateful for it? Shouldn’t we take it and use it and enjoy it and create from it? Shouldn’t we glory in it and make the most of every moment of it?
Starting today I plan to dump the etiquette book – the one that tells me I must look like Victoria Beckham to wear the latest trendy jeans; my living room must look like a show place at all times and my husband MUST NOT relax on the living room couch to watch the 6 o’clock news until he has showered and changed; my grand daughter MUST have ballet and piano lessons because these are necessary skills she needs to make her way in the world – even though she is five and prefers to climb trees; I must book a cruise for our annual holiday because everyone is raving about cruises being the be all and end all of fantastic holidays. And so on and on and on.
I have decided that FROM NOW ON I will cherish each day; relax more; stop trying to organise my family (for their own good). I will banish the word DIET from my vocabulary and I will accept that I am the master of my own destiny and entitled to enjoy and revel in my gift of each day.
We live in a wonderful world and I am going to squeeze every drop of enjoyment from it.
Today I shall skip all assignments and walk along the beach instead. It’s a small start but I owe it to me in this big wide wonderful world.

We Are the Champions – Baby Boomers, the backbone of six decades

Posted by Travel Bug in March 15, 2009

I’m now officially in my sixties. I can’t believe it, I’m still 18 in my head. Okay, so my body’s showing signs of wear but, like my fellow baby boomers, I’m aware of it and spend a lot of time  trying to halt those all too obvious signs of degeneration. Why do you think Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig have been so successful? I’ll bet if the stats were analysed you’d find Baby Boomers to be the backbone of their membership lists. And all the others are BB offspring, so what does that tell you? Yes, we are something to be reckoned with; we are the generation of the generation who fought for freedom in two world wars; we are the ones who grew up discovering the world before it was all brought into our living rooms by Television and Internet. We are the ones who held down two or more jobs to save for our great OE and still did it on a shoestring; the ones who paid off our mortgages and saved every penny for the kids’ new school shoes – where was the Warehouse when we needed it? We never heard of `top ups’ to our mortgages so we can have everything we wanted right here, right now.
Remember when only one family in the street had TV and we’d all traipse down to watch `Rawhide’ and make an evening of it? Then it was the family with the first COLOUR TV and we’d do the same only this time it was to watch the Olympics in glorious colour.
And now it’s all rather ho hum. We’ve ALL got colour TV; we’ve ALL got waste disposals, computers, and internet access and the kids have every conceivable modern gizmo along with their own mobile phones so they can stay in touch – constantly.
Now texting is the new `talk.’ Why talk when you can text, so much quicker and easier – maybe the next generation will forget how to talk? Goodness, how did the thought of me in my 60′s evolve into a one woman soap box on generational evolvement? I’ll give it some thought and let you know when I come back. Right now I have other things on my mind, which I might share with you another time. And it’s still a WONDERFUL LIFE! Have a great week.

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