Page 69 - Wake Up and do Your Thing
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NICHOLAS BOOTHMAN
The Monk Who Ran a Jazz Bar
On June 14th, 1967, three months before my twenty- first birthday, I quit my job in advertising, said goodbye to London and set off on an adventure with three friends. Our mission: to open a disco in an idyllic Algarve fishing village on the south coast of Portugal. Unfortunately our plan fell apart on the day we arrived when the builder upped his price to an unacceptable level. My companions quickly wrote off the situation as bad luck and returned to London, blaming everyone but themselves for their naivety. I chose to see this as an opportunity for something greater and decided to stay.
Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows? I was brought up to believe when one door closes another one opens, and that one thing always leads to another. And that these so-called “things” almost always come in human form. I couldn’t wait to find out what mysteries lay ahead in this small, sleepy fishing village hidden away at the end of a sweeping green
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