A bit of romance for you.

The other night we watched De-Lovely, the story of Cole Porter's life. A sensational film that has reawakened my love for Cole Porter. (Maybre I was Gay in a previous life) Here is a gorgeous clip from the film High society, to get you in the mood for Valentines day. Check out how natural Grace Kelly is with Bing, they must have had a really nice time filming this.

Bloody brilliant

I haven't got a photo of any of it (Saturday nights concert), so I'll post this one which gives a fair indication of how I felt at the end of the night. Slightly hysterical but really, really pleased.

I don't know how to describe how good it is to see Ricardo doing his thing on stage. He is born to do it, a born performer absolutely in his element.

Every one said how much they enjoyed it, but they don't realise how much enjoyment we get out of doing it. It's incredibly nerve wracking to get up on stage. all the words of the songs go straight out of your head unless you know them back to front....some I did and some I didn't.

Performance anxiety.

It's getting pretty nerve wracking around here, waiting for 6pm to come when we have a sound check for tonight's gig. So I thought I'd relieve the tension and cook and blog. Just lunch really but I had these photos in my camera from the other night when we had William, John & Sally round for borsch and cards. I made plaited rye bread, mushroom dumplings
(or Ushka) which means 'little ears' and borsch.
We had a great night but I still didn't win the Yarnuf game.

The bells , the bells.

I just realised I could blog this from New Years Eve.

Ricky Royale and those swingin' crown jewels

Yes it's happening again. The Ricky Royale trio is prepering to lift the roof this Saturday night 17th January at 8pm at East Harling Church.
Be there or be square.There will be special guests including that songstress of soul.......me.
Come on down.

Life in the fast lane with Giselle

Santa gave us a present this year which may very well have been the best present ever. Her name is Giselle. She saw us through from East Harling to London & back via Heathrow and then on to Dover, Dunkerque, the Loire valley, Paris & then home again, with only a few miscalculations in between. You may have gathered by now that Giselle is a Sat Nav or GPS. I always poo-pooed them thinking what was wrong with eyes, map & a sense of adventure. How wrong can you be. when you've taken a wrong turn in Paris and have no idea whether you're even on the right side of the road, her calm "Recalculating" is a balm to the soul.
It's been freezing here and even colder in France where we've done a whirlwind tour to show Roxi and Matt where Matt's ancestors would have lived (Matt is French Canadian).
This is the house we stayed at with our hostess with the absolute mostest Liz. Thank God for Liz who not only greeted us with a warm house (no small feat, as it had taken her days to heat it), a three course meal but had put 2 hot water bottles in each bed.
This is a photo of it in August when we were there last.
We did a bit of chateau spotting too... this one is at Angers. So incredibly beautiful under snow and we had it all to ourselves, (well besides the man with one glass eye who smelled of Gauloises who gave a sensational tour of the tapestries of the apocalypse the largest medieval tapestry known to exist).
Strange to see koalas there at this time of year.
We also went to Chenonceau.
I've never seen so many fur coats in all my life.
A small aside just in case you're feeling left out and yearning for some French style in your life, let me console you with some French bad taste...yes it's universal especially at this time of year. This was a floral arrangement at the Chenonceau Chateau and yes they are tartan teddy bears.
We saw these deflated & sad Santas everywhere, hanging by their necks.
Here a photo of us all on our walk around the environs of La Fosse giving our rendition of Volare.
And my solo...
The moat around this tiny Chateau just down the road from us was completey covered in ice.
Here's a cute photo for you of the bats in Liz's cave. as Roxi said 'What ARE they hanging on with?'
After the aforementioned scary ride through Paris, past the Louvre, the Opera and the golden Joan of Arc, we dropped our charges off in gay Paris just down from the Moulin Rouge.
Have fun our treasured sweethearts & lets hope Bangkok is a little warmer.
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