Category: Dancing

Dancin’ – 20 February 2025

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Out shopping in the morning and dancing in the afternoon’

Sometimes, life is one big whirl!

Out in the morning to get my meds for the next couple of months and then I did some light shopping for lunch today and tomorrow. By the time I got back it was time to get ready for the Tea Dance.

Long, long tailbacks on the M77 which looked like it had been turned into a giant carpark for the day, and it was raining! It had been blue skies when we left the house, but the weather has been very changeable for the last few days. By the time we were taking the slip road off to Paisley, the congestion was easing an it looked like there had been a crash just a few hundred metres from our turn off. The rest of the journey to Glenburn was without incident and we were just a few minutes late.

Usual mix of waltz, jive and rumba with a few sequence dances to lighten the day. Then S&J announced that we were getting a short waltz lesson, the New Vogue Waltz. It wasn’t totally new to us, but it was a long time since we first learned it (November 2021 I’m told) at Perth. We we were almost total newbies, then. It wasn’t too bad and danced as a sequence dance you usually have someone in front of you to act as a guide to the steps. I’d say it was danceable, and certainly better than the overly complicated “October Waltz”. I think we might be introduced to the New Vogue Waltz on Saturday if all is well.

We left just after 3pm to avoid the school runs and I made a few bad decisions like taking the Kingston Bridge rather than the longer but less congested M74/M73 route. You win some and lose some. Torrential rain showers on the way home didn’t help much either.

I suggested we get some chicken thighs and make a Chicken & Pea Traybake for dinner and the suggestion was accepted. I waited until the rain had almost disappeared before I walked over to M&S. By the time I got there the sun was shining brightly and I cursed my stupidity to not bring a camera.

The traybake takes a while to cook, but as the oven is doing all the heavy lifting, it’s not a great hardship. It turned out just as good as every other time I’ve made it, and there are not a lot of recipes I can say that about.

Because I’d left the camera at home, I had nothing for PoD until I spied a pretty spray of pink carnations on the piano. A box and a paint can balanced on a stool provided a support for a jar of pencils and the carnations stood a decent distance away from an A2 drawing sheet pinned to the wall. Camera on a tripod and the PoD photo was taken. I quite like the result. Not perfect, but worth another try some time.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending going to FitSteps and I’m hoping to work out why the iPhone won’t accept one of my most used email addresses.

Snow and an Anniversary – 17 February 2025

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In the morning there was snow, but it didn’t lie for long before the snow turned to rain.

It was one of those days when the weather couldn’t decide what to do for the best. First it decided that today was to be a snowy day with fairly thick flakes coming down. Then it chose to change its mind and make the snow disappear, before thinking again and returning to the snowy theme. On and off, it went all morning until eventually snow was cancelled and just plain dull was the choice for the day. Then it rained, of course.

We didn’t do much today. We drove over to Tesco to get Scamp’s meds and a few bits and pieces for lunch and dinner.

After some discussion we decided that we’d go dancing in the early evening and spent a fairly useful hour trying to work out how we were going to dance the Foxtrot. Would we choose style 1 where we would do part one and then repeat that pattern.
Or would we choose style 2 where we would start with part one and then add on part two before returning to part one and repeating the entire routine.

To be honest, I was completely lost. Style 1 I could understand and I could almost manage style 2, but neither of them seemed to allow us to move round the dance floor and it looked to me as if we were simply dancing a routine on the same area of the floor all the time. I was confused … Dot Com. I don’t think this was one of Kirsty’s more thought out routines.

We drove home after the class and had Giovanni Rana pasta with some fancy out of date mushrooms on the side. Neither of us liked the mushrooms very much and they more or less stayed ‘on the side’.

We did scoff a couple of half bottles of wine while we watched Mastermind and University Challenge, shouting out the occasional answer now and again.

It was our 52nd wedding anniversary today and we were allowed to do those things without fear or favour.

PoD was a picture of a Christmas Rose from the garden, looking a bit battered and bruised by the wild weather, but still flowering nicely.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet Charlie and maybe another couple of folk I haven’t seen for about forty years! Perhaps I should wear a red carnation!

Dancin’ and a Black Monkey – 15 February 2025

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Drove to Brookfield and a hundred people we there for dancing class.

Not really a hundred, but lots more than normal. I don’t know why that might be. Maybe it’s because the S&J fan club are going to somewhere in Spain soon and some folk needed a couple of refresher courses and had a Saturday morning free. Or maybe it was our scintillating dancing skills that were drawing them in, but I don’t think so. Still, it was a big class.

The first dance was the October Waltz. I don’t know who invented it, but I firmly believe they had their head up their backside when they made it up. It just doesn’t flow as a waltz should. I find it clumsy and badly written. Too many forward and back moves. If you danced it as just one couple and not a sequence dance, you’d be crashing into the dancers behind you and causing mayhem. I put up with it for the requisite amount of time and hoped that whatever was coming next would be better.

The next dance was a Jive and it was marginally better. I could understand the steps and the order they were being danced in. That’s when a Black Monkey waltzed (pun intended) onto the floor. After that I couldn’t put a foot right. Everything was being analysed by Scamp and found wanting. “Lift your knee when you do the Hip Bump” I’d just done that, but apparently it was a different knee I should have been using. After we’d attempted all the different steps and worked out the sequence they should be danced in, I still wasn’t getting it right. Jive is a routing, like Salsa, but without the joy that salsa has.

The last unit was a Rumba. A very short one. We had learned a longer version a few years ago and I felt this new one wasn’t anywhere as good nor as elegant as that old dance.

We finished with Scamp’s favourite sequence dance, the Tina Tango danced to Ed Sheehan’s Shivers. Scamp’s best favourite dance, and mine now too. It’s just joyful, especially compared to today lesson.

I was speaking to a fellow dancer when we were leaving and asked him if he’d enjoyed the morning class. He replied that he’d rather have *“paid the twenty quid to watch Partick Thistle being beaten again.” That more or less summed up my feelings.

We drove home through heavy traffic which turned out to be Celtic supporters travelling to their home game against Dundee United. Apparently none of the supporters wanted a black monkey which still clung to me.

By the time we got home my replies to Scamp were becoming monosyllabic and it wasn’t until I decide to go out in the rain to get tonight’s dinner that the black monkey left me. I don’t know where it went, I was just happy that it was gone from me and despite the weather, I felt so much better.

PoD was a couple of Pansies that have survived the winter so far and seem happy in their spot on the garden fence.

My apologies to you S. I know you were just trying to help and you did help. I was the one at fault.

Tomorrow we should go out for a stroll, if the weather is playing nice.

Cold morning with rain later – 10 February 2025

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Not a good day for outdoor photography.

I did very little in the morning apart from fail at Wordle. Too many different options for The Word, and I chose the wrong one. Scamp then followed me to failure. I didn’t feel quite so bad after that.

It was a bit too cold to do any serious photography, but scrounging around I found a tub of shop-bought basil plants that looked interesting enough to make a decent photo with the rain splashed kitchen window behind. When the sun made one of its occasional visits, it showed off the texture of the basil leaves and made some nice bokeh splashes on the window. PoD captured.

We went to Kirsty’s dance class in the evening and worked our way round the floor with a few tracks of the waltz we’ve been learning. Next was the Foxtrot which is a much more interesting kettle of fish. It was quite a big class and a busy floor as a result. If the entire class had been there it would have been even tighter for space, but two couples were missing. We were more or less left to our own devices as Kirsty and Nicola were doing their best to help the less able. Wet drive home and grabbed one of only two parking spaces.

Dinner is becoming a late evening thing now that we’re going to Kirsty’s class at 6pm. Tonight it was based on Potatoes and Cabbage with a very neatly poached egg for Scamp and the remains of yesterday’s stew for me.

No plans as yet for tomorrow, but something tells me there might be shopping to be done.

Just another Saturday – 8 February 2025

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Out in the morning to drive to Brookfield for another dance class.

Today’s class started by going straight into the October Waltz. Not my favourite of the waltz genre, but I didn’t write the script. Until this year we had always started with a sequence dance to ease us into the work that was to come. It appears now that has changed and we go straight into the class proper. This waltz seems a bit disjointed and doesn’t flow as well as some others. That’s my excuse for making a mess of it. Some others were also struggling and I’m sure they have their own excuses too.

Next was the Jive which was a bit awkward to start with, but it started to flow a bit better after a few practise sessions. I’m still feeling that bits of aren’t quite right, and I think I need to look more closely at the videos we’ve taken in class and see where I’m going wrong. That’s one of the benefits of filming short sequences of the dances. I can look back over the steps and find out where I’m ‘wrong footed’ and where I’m just plain wrong. When we get up to do a jive routine, we always start with the Seven Spins which is Glasgow Jive. Maybe we should put that on the back burner for a change and attempt the Ballroom Jive that S&J teach. After all, we come to class to learn the steps, not to cause confusion dancing our own steps.

Third set was a Rumba and although it was familiar to us, Jane had added a few changes to the steps and we did manage to get through them, although when I was watching the more experienced couples I could see how clumsy my attempts were. We live and learn.

We finished the hour and a half with the Melody Foxtrot and then my least favourite, the exhausting Midnight Jive. After that we were free to go. Despite my complaints, I really enjoyed today’s class.

Drove home via the Kingston Bridge which wasn’t as bad as it sometimes is on a Saturday. Maybe neither of the Glasgow teams were at home today, or maybe I just picked the right lane to be in.

We needed some extra bits and pieces for today’s dinner, so we walked over to the shops later to buy some. The meal in question was Spiced Coconut Chicken Traybake. For once it looked just like the photo in the magazine Scamp was making it from. We both would have made small changes, but we were both in agreement that it was worth attempting again.

I took a walk over to St Mo’s in the afternoon and today’s PoD is a low level shot of the wildfowl on St Mo’s pond.

No plans for tomorrow as yet.

 

Note to self:
I think I’ve found where I was making mistakes with the Lightroom catalog I’ve been using since the start of January 2025. I may use the old 2022 catalog (from the Grey SSD) to create a new catalog just to see if it runs properly. It need a bit of planning first to make sure I don’t corrupt anything that’s running just now.

Dancin’ – 6 February 2025

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Not a class, just a Tea Dance. Much more fun!

We drove over to Glenburn for this week’s tea dance. The first decent run the Blue car has had since its operation and it passed with flying colours. A much smoother ride than recent, although I was careful to avoid as many potholes as possible. Scamp was my ‘eye on the road’, warning me of any avoidable holes.

The class was about half full and we danced quite a lot of the ballroom and latin dances as well as the sequence dances. Lots of catching up with different folk we hadn’t met for a few weeks, some we hadn’t seen since before Christmas!
The tea dances give us a chance to practise what we’ve learned in Stewart & Jane’s classes and also the simpler routines we’ve worked our way through in Kirsty’s class. Today’s waltz was one we learned a couple of weeks ago in The Link. Really enjoyed today’s dance. Maybe because I felt comfortable with the dances we took part in.

We left early again, and for once we made good time, clearing the Kingston Bridge without stopping once. An amazing feat!

We came home via Tesco to allow me to post Jamie’s calendar which will be over a month late by the time he receives it. Maybe one more to go and that will be me finished for this year.

Dinner tonight was Bacon and Borlotti Beans. One we picked up from Jamie and Simonne, and still a firm favourite.

PoD was a photo of an orchid I treated myself to a couple of weeks ago. It was going cheap in Tesco and I thought it would look good on the kitchen window sill. It seems to enjoy its place there.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending to go to FitSteps and I’m hoping to get a letter written.

 

An Early Rise – 3 February 2025

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The comedy!

The Blue car was going in to the car hospital to have some surgery done. Reluctantly I left it with the other cars while I went looking for a taxi to take me home. It came quite quickly for a Monday just after the school bells had rung. A very pleasant man drove me home and I handed him a couple of quid after I’d crossed his card machine with plastic.

I reckoned I had a couple of hours to finish Wordle and have a cup of coffee before going to the dentist. As it happened a had a bit more than those couple of hours, but I didn’t know that at the time.

After we’d collaborated on solving Wordle, Scamp asked me what time I was due at the dentist and that was when panic took over. I read the card the dentist had given me and it read 10:15am. It was now 9:40 and I hadn’t brushed my teeth or checked for hidden plaque and the dentist is half an hour’s walk away, so I was cutting it fine, but I strode out and got there with a few minutes to spare. The first receptionist said “You’re not on my list for today.” and I thought I’d won a watch. Then the other receptionist said quietly, “Yes, you are, but not for an other hour. Do you want to stay or go for a coffee?” Either way, I’d been caught.

I left the surgery and phoned Scamp to ask her to check on the card. She replied “Yes, it says 10:15 … but that was for November!” Somebody else confirming that I was a Numpty. She agreed to meet me in Condorrat to go for a coffee, which is what we did. She didn’t have any money, nor did she have her phone, but thankfully she did have the house keys. We had coffee, bought some rolls and then she walked home and I walked crestfallen into the dentists for the second time today.

The check-up showed that the penicillin I’d been doping myself with had done the trick. The soft squidgy gum was now hard and smooth and despite the lady dentist’s probing and rattling my big wisdom tooth I gave not a squeak. I left with a smile on my face.

After a roll ’n’ cheese for me and one with an egg for Scamp I wrote five notes to folk I knew well, who had sent me Christmas cards a favour which I hadn’t returned. They are sitting upstairs waiting to be posted, hopefully tomorrow. Another tick in another box.

Late in the afternoon I got a message from Jim Dickson to say that the car won’t be ready until tomorrow. One of the two arm bushes won’t be delivered until tomorrow (and NO, I don’t know what an arm bush is.)
That meant we’d need to get a taxi to and from dance class tonight. No big deal.

We arrived early and stood chatting with Kirsty until the rest of the dancers arrived. Firstly we went over the short waltz. I actually felt quite confident of dancing it, even after Scamp ceased whispering me the prompts.

Next was the Foxtrot which was a bit more difficult, but eventually it also fitted into a space in my ‘dancing head’. I even added the final part of the foxtrot and got most of it correct. The foxtrot still needs a bit more work, but hopefully we’ll get a chance to practise it during the week.

PoD was a photo I took earlier in the day. It’s actually a tray with a selection of cacti and some succulents. Carefully selected view point gave it a bit of mystery. It was actually placed on a shelf in the downstairs toilet with a bright sun shining on it from behind. Possibly too much information there, but it’s done now.

Tomorrow I’m hoping for a bit of a lie in and a healthier Blue car to drive.

 

 

 

Dancin’ – 1 February 2025

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Driving over to Brookfield for a dance class.

I really thought we were going to have to give up on dance class last night. Nobody seemed to want to tell us if the class was on or off. As it happened, it was on. Thanks for making us wait for hours to find out if the class was on!! Yes, that was sarcasm.

Anyway, today we started with the October waltz. A rather over complicated and clumsy at times, waltz. Eventually with the help of Scamp I managed the first part of it, but it wasn’t easy. I can’t imagine dancing this on a busy floor, like at the Salutation with about eighty other dancers on the floor. Maybe I’m being over critical, but we just don’t have the time to drive over to Brookfield twice a week like a lot of the class do. We survived it, but I was glad to move on to the Tango.

We’d learned the basis of the tango a year or so ago and this one wasn’t really all that different. Basically the same moves in a different order, I thought. Lots of little tweaks that were interesting were included and we did manage a fairly decent run around the floor.

Next stop was a few jive steps. The problem here is that we learned Glasgow Jive, away back in the dim mists of time. It’s totally different from Ballroom Jive. It’s all to do with the beats I’m told, but it complicates matters, not knowing which foot I should be on. Maybe we should just forget Glasgow Jive and throw ourselves into the Ballroom Jive. Seriously, it would be difficult to unlearn a dance and start anew, but it might be the only way to keep in step with the rest of the class.

Final torture was the Midnight Jive, of all things. One track was enough for all of us, I think. Too much work today and not enough breaks for lighter, sequence dances.

We drove home on a very quiet M80. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the road so empty, but I didn’t complain, I just kept on keeping the car between the white lines!

I went for a walk in the afternoon to clear my head and to get some photos. I was hoping to get a couple of shots of the ladybirds that overwinter in St Mo’s, but none were visible this year. Such a shame. Lots of trees down here, most of them old and rotten. I imaging none of the tree doctors will be tending to them, deep in the woods.

PoD went to a tiny wee mushroom. The cap is less than 3mm high. How did something so fragile survive Storm Éowyn?

No plans for tomorrow.

Dentist and Dancin’ – 23 January 2025

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But not at the same time!

A couple of days ago I had a pain in one of my wisdom teeth at the very back of my mouth. A few moments later I had a horrible taste in my mouth too. I thought it might be an abscess and drove up to the dentist’s surgery. The girl there is very good and squeezed me in to an appointment for this morning – It’s a really busy surgery practice.

The dentist had a look, but couldn’t see any sign of infection, but she took an X-ray just to be sure and although the photo came out clear, she said she’d give me a course of penicillin just in case there was something there. Two tablets, four times a day when my stomach is empty. An hour before food or two hours after food. Far too complicated for a bear with little brain! Worse, they taste awful!

Back home we decided to go to the first Tea Dance of the season. The fact that we were promised home-made Tea Loaf had nothing to do with our decision. Awful weather and a host of potholes made for something less than the best journey we’ve had, except for the train journey home after Christmas!

We arrived late and were met with Stewart’s favourite comment: “Don’t think you can just Waltz in here!” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that old joke. Anyway, we were seated far away from our usual table and we were directly under the speaker. Maybe that’s why we were on the dance floor most of the day – to keep away from that speaker. I think we must have been up for every dance except the Scottish selection. Traditional if the Tea Dance is nearly at Burns Night. The tea loaf was excellent. Home made as promised by Jane.

Most of the second half was a collection of Sequence Dances and although Scamp was as sure footed as usual, I must admit to being a bit rusty and needing a prod in the right directions sometimes.

As usual, we left early to avoid the worst of the schools coming out. The weather had deteriorated by then and it was an uncomfortable drive home. I think I may have damaged a shock absorber on one or two of the potholes which seemed to be everywhere today. I may take the car down to Jim Dickson to have it looked at next week.

No outside photos today because of the atrocious weather. Drizzling rain is not conducive to taking photos, unless you want to have your camera ruined. I didn’t. So, PoD was a bunch of violet and white Lisianthus cut flowers that Crawford and Nancy had brought yesterday.

We’ve been given a RED weather warning for wind tomorrow. It has gradually climbed up the scale from Yellow to Amber to Red in the past few days with winds in excess of 100mph on the west coast and over 60mph inland. No trains, schools closed, no GPs, no buses. We’ve been told to be prepared for possible power cuts too. The danger of life warning blared out at about 5pm, scaring the living daylights out of me.

Hopefully it won’t be quite as bad as they are predicting, but we have to be ready for it anyway.

An early shout – 20 January 2025

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Out just after 9am (early for me!) to go see the bloodsuckers. Those darling ladies who take away some of my high quality blood for their own nefarious purposes. I think they use it to make black pudding!

After the blood letting, I was free to enjoy the rest of the day. It was a gloomy prospect. Poor light in an overcast sky and nothing to look forward to. Even lost my 36 day run on Wordle. First one I’d tried on the new phone. I hope that’s not an indication of what’s coming next.

After a reviving cup of coffee, Scamp set out her plans for the remainder of the day which involve driving to Falkirk to look for a bedside lamp, a coffee table, maybe a new fridge and just the chance of a new rug for the lighting room.

  • None of the many bedside lamps ticked her boxes.
  • Of coffee tables there were no signs.
  • Fridges were also thin on the ground. There were cheap ones and there were expensive ones, but virtually nothing in between.
  • We did find a rug which was almost the same size as our present one and we took a chance on it.

At least we did get the rug and then we went shopping in Morrisons for … well, shopping mainly; – also known as ‘Messages’. We were almost as unlucky there too. It being Monday, a lot of the shelves were empty. I’m beginning to wonder about Morrisons. Over Christmas they were in dire straits when they couldn’t produce the Christmas goodies folk had been saving up for. It wasn’t a good sign. No doubt we’ll hear about it sooner rather than later if the shops begin to close.

Drove home and I took a chance on being able to get some decent landscape shots. Luckily for me I did find a likely sky scape that reflected on the water of the pond at St Mo’s. I took that as a basis for a PoD.

Drove up to Kirsty’s new dance class. The class had started last week, but neither Scamp nor I was really ready for it, but today we were. The hall she had found was a decent size an brightly lit. Much, much better than the dingy pocket handkerchief we’d been working I for the past year. This was a whole new possibility. Tonight’s dance was the first two parts of a waltz routine and it worked well. We had a new couple just joined us last week too. I hope Kirsty’s enthusiasm starts to bring in more ballroom and latin dancers.

Tomorrow, I think we may be practising some food ideas for two friends on Wednesday, all being well.