Bucket lists. And pole dancing

5

June 5, 2013 by talkaboutyork

Many people talk about having a bucket list. You know, the things you have to do before you die, or kick the bucket so to speak. I don’t really know if I have one. I have travelled a lot. I’ve been on safaris and danced in a Samba club in Rio with a large, strange man who couldn’t speak a word of english but really didn’t need to as his feet did the talking. There are many places I would still like to go, Machu Picchu being up there, seeing the Northern Lights another, an elephant safari in Thailand maybe?

But I have lived in different countries and sailed across an ocean. And started and sold a business and am now attempting to write a book. All things that can appear on bucket lists. I am pleased to have crossed those off.

So what next?

Sure I’d love to master playing the violin or piano (chance of that happening = zero) or to learn to speak french or spanish (a moderately better chance). Even though I’ve never really had running a marathon as one of the things I must do, I was going to do one this year until I decided that my already knackered hips probably didn’t need to carry me 26.2 miles for no good reason. I have absolutely no desire to swim with sharks or dolphins or jump out of a plane. Or climb Everest although Kilimanjaro wouldn’t be bad.

I’d like to learn how to make my own pasta and perhaps become a wine connoisseur. Or perhaps just drink a lot of it. Oh hang on, I can already tick that box.

I would absolutely love to discover that I am in fact an amazing writer who stumbles across a brilliant book idea, gets it published, sells a bazillion of them, makes a fortune, ends up on the red carpet at the Oscars as the book as been turned into a critically acclaimed film which goes on to gross even more bazillions and I get to wear a stunningly expensive gown and have someone make me look like a movie star for just one night. That would be a bucket list thing with a huge box next to it requiring a really impressive tick probably in sparkly pink ink.

Oh, and I’d like a house that opens its doors to the sea. Or a lake. Not fussy really.

So I guess I do have a bucket list of sorts.  I’ve just never really listed them all until now.

But today I did something that ticks a box on a bucket list, even if there wasn’t originally a box to tick.

I did pole dancing.

I can’t say that I have ever thought, ‘God, you know what I need to do before I die? Dance around a pole.’ I may in fact have done that on drunken occasions, the pole being a lamp-post. But proper pole dancing takes skill.

Admittedly I wasn’t wearing a thong and heels and men weren’t throwing money at me. Instead I was trying not to bulge out of my tiny shorts and running top, while chafing the heck out of my inner thighs. But good grief it was fun.

Before you look at me quizzically going qué? (take note of how well my Spanish is going already), let me explain how this came to pass.

A few weeks ago, while drinking wine (tick) and watching our children play cricket, a group of mums and I discovered that there was a pole dancing class taking place at the exact same time in the same building. We decided there and then that we were going to do it.

And today we did. I now have a new-found respect for pole dancers. It is very, very hard. Even the easy bits are hard. And the hard bits don’t bear thinking about. I left with bruised inner thighs, a chafed wrist and a throbbing right foot where I stood on one of the feet of the pole stand. Despite that, I will be back again next week. Oh yes, I am going to conquer the pole. All of a sudden, my bucket list has a new entry.

Be able to hold yourself upside down on a pole using only your inner thighs.

Sort of like this:

Watch this space……

So what’s on your bucket list?

PS – if you’re interested in trying it, the company in York I went with is this one.