Tracks of Carole’s years: part 3

06 Dec 2021 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

My 5th song is Way Down by Elvis Presley. Most of my childhood was spent listening to Elvis’s music as my dad was a huge fan. So I quickly joined him in that love of the great man.

Most people can recall where they were when we learnt of his death, we were on holiday in Weymouth when we heard the news on the radio in our guest house. At the age of 10 I don’t think I realised at the time how big a deal it actually was, but it was the first time I saw my dad cry.

Way Down was the last single released by Elvis before his death, it’s one of my favourites.

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The 6th song on my list is Good day sunshine by The Beatles. In my final year of primary school I had the most fantastic teacher, Mr. Parkin. He was so creative in the way he structured his lessons, helping us to learn with competitions and quizzes, he read us books like The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. He also set up a disco every Friday afternoon.

Music and dance was very important to him and he created a dance group, I remember watching them perform in assembly and thought I definitely wanted to be a part of that. So when I was finally in his class I jumped at the chance to join when he set up a new group. We did a dance routine to this song.

I will never forget Mr. Parkin, he was the best teacher I ever had and I still remember a lot of what he taught me, even after 44 years! he was truly inspirational.

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All the world’s a stage

06 May 2018 1 Comment

by Carole Gardiner in 50 Fabulous things Tags: , , , , ,

We are so lucky in Bristol to have an amazing theatre, the Hippodrome right in the city centre is the place to go to see a fantastic performance. Since opening in 1912 it has played host to many big names and productions. With it’s seating capacity of nearly 2000 the atmosphere during the shows are nearly always electric.

As I’ve written before in this blog I’m a massive fan of ballet, so when I saw that Romeo and Juliet was coming to Bristol I knew that it would be a fabulous thing. It was also my favourite production choreographed by the late Rudolph Nureyev, I first saw it in Bristol about 20 years ago and loved it.

My fellow ballet lovers were my mum and Phoebe, (Jane B’s daughter). We had the most fabulous time and the ballet was wonderful.

romeo and juliet

Another fabulous event at the Hippodrome was the Lord of the Dance; Dangerous Games, with mum and Deb. I’ve always loved watching Irish dancing and I found the performance incredibly moving.

lord of the dance

I’ve always wanted to learn how to Irish dance but never found an adult class. But this year my dream came true when the local Irish school of dance started offering classes. The Quinn School of  Irish dance is a very successful school that has been teaching children in Bristol for many years. Stacey, it’s founder, is a fantastic teacher and I’m having the best time, even though it is so exhausting.

 

 

Dance like no-one is watching

27 Mar 2016 1 Comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

 

In my never ending quest to find interesting ways to keep fit and because I can’t play netball at the moment due to my wrist injury, I decided to sign up to an 8 week dancing course.

After seeing a post on Facebook I registered for a free “On Broadway” taster session with Fitness Fusion. Run by Katy Robinson, a professional dancer of many years. who has been teaching dance since the age of 16. Based in Sheffield Katy created “On Broadway” dance classes for women to gain confidence, get fit, have fun and release their inner show girl. On each course two dances from the Broadway shows are taught with a teaching style that breaks down complex routines. By expanding her team, Katy has branched out to Derbyshire, Richmond Upon Thames, Cheshire and Bristol.

The taster session was very busy, full of women not really knowing what the next hour was going to bring. Katy and her instructor Charlotte taught us most of the dance made famous by Catherine Zeta Jones and Renee Zellweger at the end of Chicago, called Hot Honey Rag. Due to the session only being an hour there wasn’t time to learn the whole routine.

I loved every minute of it and didn’t need to wait to hear Katy’s sales pitch about the course at half time, to know that I was ready to sign up to learn more dances. Although I spent most of my childhood in ballet school, I never had the opportunity to do these kinds of dances. It was so exciting to get the chance at last and I couldn’t wait to get started.

Thankfully I didn’t have to wait for long and before I knew it I was making my way to a little village hall to begin my dance adventure. At the time of writing we have just completed week 3 learning a routine from the musical Fame. Unfortunately we now have a 2 week break for Easter, so there’s a real danger of forgetting every step we’ve learnt up to now. We have one more week of Fame then it’s onto a Fred Astaire number from the musical Top Hat complete with props!

If this dance opportunity comes to your area don’t hesitate to sign up, you won’t regret it.

dance fusion

To find out more follow this link Dance like no-one is watching

All in a great cause

08 May 2013 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

On Saturday a group of mainly women from a few local classes, a couple of husbands were dragged along,  got together to do a charity zumba session. With our zumba instructors for 2 hours we salsa’d, shimmied, jumped, twisted and turned in aid of the charity Women’s Aid.

Women’s Aid is a national charity dedicated to the welfare and protection of women and children who suffer domestic abuse. They have been around for more than 30 years working to promote women’s rights, to try and prevent domestic abuse and to support those affected by this despicable crime.

We had a great time even though we didn’t know half the routines as the instructors took it in turns to lead a routine and we only knew the dances our instructors did in our weekly classes. But that didn’t matter because we still got the exercise trying to catch up!

I did take some photos but I don’t think my fellow zumberers would appreciate being shown online having just done 2 hours of intense exercise, I certainly don’t want to show you all my red face and my sweaty hair stuck to my head!

Here is a link to Women’s Aid website  http://www.womensaid.org.uk

 

zumbaultimateclasses