Introduce Yourself : Greetings from Iceland :) by Pauline McCarthy

Hi folks, wonderful to read your intro's :) I'm originally from Scotland but spent 18 years travelling the world doing voluntary work and performing to make money for the various charities I was helping. I settled in Iceland 23 years ago and mostly performed Celtic song and a wee bit of acting. When I turned 50 four years ago, I decided that I wanted to do what I liked to perform and so I started doing some Big Band Swing numbers. I still did some avant guarde acting. I was going through my menopause and found that most of the information online was just very medical and not very practical on how to survive the menopause. So I started a new stage show called The Pearls of Pauline - Pearls of Wisdom, Compassion & Joy for Menopausal Women. It is quite light hearted and has some self help talks, some Swing numbers and sometimes some live art, where I compare the layers of paint to the layers of our lives until we get to that certain age, where we begin to see the picture :) I'm going to be doing a 20 minute segment of the whole show at a charity event in London in December. I love performing to an English speaking audience. Sometimes the Icelanders just don't get the jokes due to the language barrier. I'll be doing a short piece in Norway at the end of this month, and am wondering if all the Scandinavians are so staid like the Icelanders. We shall see! :) After 18 years of performing in Iceland I was performing for the first time on a cruise ship off the coast of Alaska, I was bowled over by the response of an American audience. Isn't it amazing how the character of each nation is reflected in the audience reaction. In November I will be starting a podcast on Menopausal Support and next year hope to tour with my show, so if you are a menopausal woman or you are enduring a menopausal woman in your life right now, perhaps you will enjoy the show, if I come to your area :) I tend to take on too many projects :) I am currently organising the Festival of Nations - West Iceland, which will take place on the 9th November. I recently came out of hospital regarding a deep vein thrombus in my brain, but now I am back in action. So if any of you are interested in coming to Iceland, either for a visit or for a project, please look me up and you can either stay with us or I can show you around. It is an amazing country and in the last few years quite a few Holllywood movies have been filmed here. There is so much variety in the landscape that it is a photographers dream. LoVe Pauline