Dances in the Square...

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Every Tuesday night La Place de La Republique in Argelès becomes alive for a dance as the heat of the day diminishes. 

Live bands play different kinds of music.

Tables in the two nearby cafés are filled. Friends share tables while others bring their own chairs and put them around the edges of La Place.

Children run around dancing with each other, by themselves or with parents and grandparents.

There are regulars.

Several old women regularly dance by themselves, moving with joy to the music. Sometimes they dance with each other.

A Chinese man with braces dances almost every dance from a waltz to rock and roll. He wears braces/suspenders. His Caucasian wife is only slightly taller.

A former Army man, heavy set, comes with his wife, a short woman and a friend who is taller. They alternate dancing with him. I've always been amazed that someone that macho and big can move with such grace.

We have a hippy couple and toothpick thin is not an understatement. She always wears short-shorts. Although she may be pushing 50, I am almost jealous at the perfection of her legs. My legs weren't that good at 20. Both have long hair, but his is tied in a pony tail. She wears a smile of a woman on a stage as he swirls her  around the square. Rick calls them Butt Cheeks and No Cheeks.

Last week we saw a new couple, probably tourists. He looked a bit like Patrick Swayze and was as good a dancer and were they dramatic with bends and twists and turns.

Rick and I do get out on the floor and move a bit. That we don't match the best dancers is no problem.

It is fun and when we are tired, we sit and chat with our friends.

I am still waiting for my special Mamie (one of the old women in the village) to teach me line dancing.