Category: Dancing

Shopping, the new way – 31 March 2020

Posted on by Zogman

New day, new rules.

Drove to Tesco today with Scamp, only to be told that the rules had changed:

  • One trolley per household.
  • One person per trolley.

Scamp had the shopping list in her head. She hadn’t committed it to her phone or a notepad, so she got to be the one to enter the golden portal to do the shopping. I went back to sit in the car and enjoy the sunshine, because the sun was shining quite brightly this morning. When she arrived back at the car, her trolley was brimming with stuff. All useful and mostly edible stuff too. Biggest shop she’s done in a long time, she said. Given that there was a bottle of whisky, another of gin and three bottles of wine, plus the groceries, I’d say we did not too badly from our big spend. Lots of folk were spending much more. Those were the ones with the extra large trolleys. I’m sure some of them had a forklift truck parked in the carpark to get their stuff home.

After all the stuff was put away, and after lunch, Scamp went out to ‘clear out the bin shed’. The bin shed is where lots of the gardening stuff is kept and it occasionally deserves a good clean out. By the time I’d changed into my painting togs, she had everything out of the shed and on the path. It was probably getting in poor Bobby Flavel’s way. He lives at the corner house and is never happier than when he’s got something to do. He’d already dug his garden, swept the path and then swept the road outside. No kidding! Now he was cutting the grass for Angela (next door) who is off work and self isolating. Not only cutting the grass, but also edging it too and doing a great job. Me, I had already scraped the front sill and started painting it. The external acrylic paint is great stuff, especially when painting on warm concrete. It dries almost instantly. So, it was like the old story about the Forth Bridge. When they’d finished painting it, the went back to the start and did it all again. Once I’d finished the 2.5m length of the front sill, the bit I’d started at was dry and ready for a second coat. Two coats should do. Next the back window that I did yesterday, but wasn’t satisfied with. I’d already scraped it too and gave it a fresh coat. Maybe one more coat for it will do, maybe tomorrow.

Would I? Wouldn’t I? Eventually I did go out for a walk in St Mo’s. Walking through the woods is perfect for isolation. Usually nobody and nothing there to bother me. Today was different. Turned a corner and less than 20m away was a Roe deer, a doe, happily grazing. Luckily I had the right lens on for once and got one shot. Then its head went up and away it ran. Took another shot, but I knew it was too soft. First one looked good though. I think it was the sound of the shutter that startled it. Next time I’ll remember to use silent (electronic) shutter. If there is a next time. This is the first time for months I’ve actually managed to get a decent shot of a St Mo’s deer, or any deer for that matter.

Walked back and took some shots of strange wee flower things on a little larch. They didn’t work, but I’m hoping to go back tomorrow and have another go, weather permitting, because we’re due some gales on Thursday. Possibly snow on Friday.

I did get one more shot and it became the PoD. A little clump of Coltsfoot Daisies growing beside the footpath on the way home. Lovely flowers, they bloom just around Easter every year. They always remind me of my dad for some reason. That’s not a bad thing at all.

I’d made stew for dinner tonight and it was lovely. Of course it was under the strict tutelage of Scamp, the number one stew chef in this house. I stewed a couple of sausages in it for good measure and they were the stars of the show. Left just enough to have for lunch tomorrow.

Practised our dancing routines tonight. We’re probably building in a lot of mistakes and short cuts I realise, but Kirsty’s not the perfectionist that Michael was, so it will be ok. What Michael did do, and did well, we both agree was teach us how to Jive and those moves are hard wired into our heads now. We reprised them too. Actually we remembered a lot of them we haven’t danced since about November last year. He might have been was a pain in the backside, but he did know his jive steps.

Tomorrow we have no real plans. Must get the upstairs sills cleaned down and maybe a coat of paint on them too. Must also get something done about staking the apple tree. Depends if we can get some wood from B&Q.

With the Trolley Dollies – 26 March 2020

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Scamp’s prescription was ready to collect. An excuse for us to go for a drive as far as the chemist and Tesco.  Scamp offered to drive and I accepted.

When we got there she went to the pharmacy queue and I went to the Tesco queue, agreeing to meet at the car. Both queues were equally long, in fact mine was probably longer, but more efficiently managed. Everyone was being careful to keep the required 2m from the person in front. It wasn’t until I was in the queue that I realised I didn’t have any bags with me, neither did I have a hat or gloves. The bags would be in the car, but not my car, Scamp’s. I could have walked along and borrowed her car keys, got the bags and taken the keys back, but when I looked behind me, the queue was even longer than when I’d joined it. So I just pulled up my hood, plugged in some music from my phone and waited, occasionally shuffling along while maintaining that 2m distance. Then I noticed everyone else, apart from me, seemed to have a trolley. I’d missed a trick there too. Not to worry, there wouldn’t be much in the store and I had only a small shopping list.

Finally got into the store, grabbed a basket and sanitised it. Compulsory it seemed. First check the pasta shelves. Glory be, they had pasta. Loads of it. Grab a bag, maybe two? No, that’s greedy, one will do. Looked behind and they had rice too! Loads of it in a couple of versions. Rice was on my mental list, so two bags of Basmati. Now, they wouldn’t have toilet rolls, would they. THEY HAD TOILET ROLLS!!! I took just one pack of nine rolls, don’t want to look like a stockpiler. Eager to get out of the store with my ill gotten gains, I forgot to get a tin of tomatoes or beans to put in the Food Bank box. Just get these essentials, and also some flowers for Scamp and go.

Then I realised I didn’t have the car key. Went looking for Scamp but I couldn’t see her in the queue. Looked inside and there was the red wooly hat. There aren’t two hats like that in the world. Walked back to the car and waited. Eventually she arrived carrying a bit bottle of medicine. We drove home and I unloaded my goodies. Oh, the excitement of unpacking, not only macaroni and rice, but also Toilet Rolls. How our lives have changed in a mere three weeks.

Tesco seem to be on top of the rationing and their systems are beginning to respond to the excessive demands of the greedy few. It’s good to see that at least someone is taking charge of things.

Toyed with the idea of going out to St Mo’s for a walk and to grab a photo, but PoD had already been taken with today’s shot I’d got of the of trolley dollies queueing outside Tesco. Instead of walking and photographing, I pinned a piece of Galleria Acrylic quality paper to my drawing board, mounted the board on my easel and proceeded to slap some acrylic paint on it in a representation of a landscape I shot at the start of January, when the world was still young. Tomorrow, when it’s dry I may slap some oil paint on top in a method recommended by the portrait artists of the year hopefuls. It won’t be a beautiful picture (it might), but it will make me think of other things than self isolating and social distancing.

While I was painting, Scamp was writing out the moves for seven sequence dances, one for every day of the week. That’s her substitute for painting. Whatever get you through the day. Spoke to my cousin Margaret in Lesmahagow tonight. She and Billy are also self isolating, but she said we’d all meet up again, probably next year “when this has all blown by”. That will be something else to look forward to.

At 8pm, on the dot the clapping started from somewhere in our square.  I think it was  the bloke who lives along the road at the corner, Wullie.  I’d forgotten that someone had decided we should all go outside at 8pm and applaud the nurses, doctors and in fact anyone in the NHS who works so hard to keep us safe and healthy.  So that’s what we did, we added our applause to the folk that were making their thanks heard.  There were even some fireworks too.  It was a sign of solidarity I suppose.

Tomorrow, beside a possible day in the art room, we may do a bit of dancing.

Breaking the rules – 25 March 2020

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We walked to the shops today, but I broke the rules by going out for a second walk later! Rebel!

We didn’t need much at the shops, which was just as well really. Like Sim has been complaining, no flour to be had anywhere, and of course, no toilet rolls. Well, not at the new shops anyway. They did have milk and they did have pancakes. They also had salt which has been in short supply too, so we got all three. That was about it. Walked back through very fine rain. That terrible wetting rain that just soaks you without you noticing it. It wasn’t cold though, the weather machine said it was over 12ºc for a while, so I gave my big Bergy jacket a rest and took my rainy coat instead. Much more comfortable and a lot lighter than the Bergy with all my odds and ends in the pockets. While we were at the shops, I saw a VW Campervan with two surf boards on top! I kid you not. Where were they off to I wondered? Maybe Tiree to catch some wild waves, or maybe just driving around looking cool.

I made a sort of pizza for lunch. It was the remains of yesterday’s flat bread dough, with some fresh flour, yeast, salt and water added. I think Scamp was right, I should just have made a proper pizza and been done with it. As it turned out, it wasn’t all that great. A bit doughy in places, but excellent in others. Baked it in the microwave using convection oven setting for about 12minutes at 220ºc. I’ve written that so I will remember it the next time I want to make a pizza in the microwave. I might not remember it, but I’ll know where to look to find it. That’s one thing Google has taught me.

After lunch I got itchy feet again and went out looking for something interesting. Yes, I know you’re only supposed to be out ONCE a day for a walk, run, jog or cycle, but I’m a rebel and I was going to tear up the rule book and put it in the bin. I wasn’t going to throw it away, I’m not that much of a rebel. I found a use for all that rain, it gave me a chance to capture today’s PoD. Just a little grass stem holding all those raindrops on its hairy surface. It would only work with that fine rain we’d been having. Heavy rain would have wetted the surface and prevented the surface tension on the raindrop from forming a shield for the enclosed water.
Then when I was coming back, I spotted a little ladybird, the first I’ve seen this year nestling under the cover of a leaf and spotted with raindrops too. Two good subject in one day.

We did a bit of a dance practise later in the afternoon. Waltz Nº1, Waltz Nº2, Quickstep and Foxtrot. Not all perfect, but adequate, considering that this is the first practise of the Isolation. Possibly Jive tomorrow.

No real plans for tomorrow, so if you’re reading this Boris, I don’t expect to be breaking the rules tomorrow. I’ll be a good little prole and not go for more than one walk.

Lockdown – 16 March 2020

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It was a day of narrowing opportunities.

Planned for coffee with the auld guys. First Val called off, with a bad cough (Not Coronavirus he said). Then Colin said he was “Socially integrating with greenhouses, garden and garage”. In other words, too busy. Fred, the final invitee, asked if the coffee shop would even be open. I hadn’t thought of that possibility. That’s when I decided to cancel the whole daft idea.

Gems met and decided that they weren’t taking the risk of catching the virus by singing at Abronhill church. With that being so, Scamp made the decision to cancel practises for the foreseeable future. I know it was a hard decision to take, but when Scamp decides on something, it stays decided. She says she’ll phone the person in charge of the church group tomorrow and explain her decision.

I went to the butchers while Gems were in session. Just for some stew and sausages. I got some Thai Chicken Stir-fry too, that’s for tomorrow’s dinner. Saw nothing worth photographing while I was out. I went up to my parking place at the back of Fannyside and watched the rain float in from the west and gradually swallow up the landscape. Saw a hill catching the sun away to the east and still haven’t quite decided what it is. I thought it might be Berwick Law, but that seems unlikely now. Must take my laptop with me the next time and try to pinpoint it. Just for something to do.

Went dancing at night in Kirsty’s class. Tidied up the original waltz routine and almost go the new waltz routine working, but not quite. To Scamp’s delight we did the Sally Ann Cha-Cha to “Fireball!” I think that might be our last class for a while.

Boris’s doom-laden statement at 5.30pm today was him setting out what life is going to be like for the next 12 weeks and it’s not good. It is, however slightly more flexible than that announced on Sunday with all persons over 70 confined to the four walls of their house for 16 weeks. At least, now, we are allowed out for a walk, as long as we stay a good distance from anyone else. We may take them up on that.

Today’s PoD was captured in the rain as we left the dance class. It’s entitled “Cumbernauld. Where the streets are paved with gold.”

Tomorrow, we may go for a walk.

A new toy – 9 March 2020

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I got the email this morning that my new tripod would be delivered today to the WEX shop in Glasgow. So I knew what the day held for me at least.

First, Scamp was off to Tesco to see if there was any food left on the shelves. Thankfully there was still some cold meat and there were bags of rolls, so lunch was sorted. While she was off on her food hunt I did the hoovering and cleaning that’s become part of Mondays for us.  A parcel arrived with the final bag of coffee that Hazy & Neil-D gave me for Christmas.  I haven’t started it yet, because I’m just finishing off the last bag which was very nice.  It took me a while to get used to the taste, because it was much lighter and fruitier than my usual ones.  I will give you an honest opinion when I’ve tried it. The email from WEX to say that the tripod was ready for collection appeared just after the cleaning business was completed.

After lunch I had a chat with Margie and she gave me an honest critique of my sketches and paintings from EDiF. It’s refreshing to have someone who paints and draws and who also has no axe to grind, tell you what you already knew. Sometimes I delude myself into thinking I’m better than I know I am. I’m not an artist. I never will be. I’ve seen real artists working and know that my work sometimes looks decent, but nothing more than that. Some of it is just plain crap and I cringe when I look back through old sketchbooks and see what I thought then was brilliant. Some of it is good though. I’ll take good, any day.

When the full complement of Gems arrived, I made my excuses and left for a drive to Glasgow. As I left the house the rain was just starting, but when I reached the motorway it was on full blast and on for the rest of the day. Picked up a far lighter tripod than I’d anticipated. This was going to be portable after all. Drove home through more rain and hauled the tripod out of its box. No instructions, but hey, it’s a tripod, how difficult could it be. Well, according to the majority of the reviews I’d read it could be very difficult. It’s been likened to “wrestling with an octopus” and “controlling a drunken giraffe”. Actually I thought it was simplicity itself to work with. Bear in mind, this was in a bedroom in a house, not in the teeth of a gale on a blasted moor, so maybe it will be difficult when I actually have to deal with it ‘in the field’. That wasn’t going to be today. Still raining.

After dinner we drove up to the dance class. I was thinking when I was driving home from Glasgow “Thank goodness I don’t have to drive in to Glasgow and back out again tonight for salsa.” It was a bit of a wrench leaving the AdS, but there were parts of it that were a total pain. Like driving into Glasgow in the rain in a traffic jam. Ten minutes up the road and we were parked and in the dance hall. Brilliant. Tonight was almost entirely devoted to a new routine to bolt on to our existing Waltz routine. It was a bit more demanding, but that’s to be expected, we are moving on after all. Scamp and I took lots of videos of the different ‘figures’ and how they are put together. Neither of us was perfect tonight, but it will get better, I’m sure.

PoD was the BENt BOlt that gives the Benbo it’s name. Apparently based on the pivot of a WW1 gun carriage!

Hopefully tomorrow I will get a chance to get it dirty in the wild world!!

Final bit of news. A dental practice in Cumbersheugh village is temporarily closed as a precaution after as positive case had been identified there. I didn’t know there were any pangolins in Scotland!

Dancing in Paisley – 5 March 2020

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Not exactly the place that springs to mind when you think of dancing.

Scamp was out early this morning to check that Isobel was all right after her first night back home after she got here new knee. She said that the patient hadn’t realised just how painful the recuperation would be, but that she was not going to be beaten by something as simple as a replacement knee.

After lunch we changed into dancing clothes, because although these tea dances are informal, there seems to be a standard of dress that it’s as well not to drop below. Today we were in Paisley, far side of Paisley really. I put my trust in the sat nav, because I don’t know that area of the central belt at all. It seemed to know where it was going and I didn’t, so I was happy to let it direct me. I usually drive by the map, but Paisley is an old town where the road intersections are not as clear cut as they are in places like Glasgow. With only one missed turning, we arrived at the community centre where our tea dance was waiting for us.

We got invited to sit with another couple and soon the room was beginning to fill up. Many of the faces were becoming known to us, plus, of course we already knew Stewart and Jane who were running the dance. We started off with a waltz and managed to get round the floor without too many slip ups. We danced quite a few sequence dances, something I wouldn’t have admitted to a year ago. Sat and talked to a couple we were on nodding acquaintance with from salsa. Overall, it was a good day, plus Jane’s homemade dumpling made the tea much tastier. The only fly in the ointment was the traffic on the way home. Basically it was a crawl from the community centre all the way to the motorway. A few miles of clear road then the usual crawl through Glasgow city centre.

Scamp wanted a new plant, a Skimmia she’d seen at the garden centre we were at yesterday, so we stopped there on the way home. I’d spotted a nice beech tree there and thought it might make a decent PoD. It looked ok through the viewfinder, but the final result wasn’t all that it could have been. Must try harder.

Fish ’n’ chips from the chip shop for dinner tonight and it was greasy, hot and delicious.

Tomorrow we may go in to Glasgow. With the warning from the Scottish government that the Coronavirus will escalate quickly now, we may have to look for hand sanitiser and some face masks first 😉

Last Dance in The Weavers – 4 March 2020

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Thankfully the last dance in that pokey little room, but we beat the corners.

First we got a phone call from Isobel to say that she was indeed getting out today. Although she’d get transport from the ward to the car, she would need a wheelchair to get from the car to the house, because the hospital wouldn’t load us a chair. Absolute nonsense, but totally in keeping with expected NLC policy. Scamp was not to be fazed by this problem and phoned one of the Gems singers and an hour later we had a wheelchair in the back of the Juke. You don’t realise just how much room a folded up wheelchair takes up in a car. I see the problem now Hazy.

By the time we’d worked out how to transport Scamp, Isobel, me and the wheelchair from the hospital to Cumbersheugh, Isobel had phoned to say she’d been told she was going to get hospital transport. Because she had more than one step up to her door and also she only had one handrail, she needed an ambulance person to get her safely into the house. One problem solved, but now we had to return the wheelchair and also return our life to what sometimes amounts to “Normal”. We went to lunch.

Lunch was in Craigend Nursery which used to be a decent sized plant nursery with a small tearoom bolted on. Now it’s very large tearoom with a nursery bolted on almost as an afterthought. Lunch was a beef burger and chips and salad and a dollop of ‘coleslaw’ that looked like a dog had been sick on my slate (no plates, just slates. Retro chic). Scamp had a very greasy looking Mac ’n’ Cheese. I don’t think we’ll be rushing back there.

Drove back and Scamp went to offload the wheelchair while I went to visit the ducks in St Mo’s. I also walked to the shops to try to get lemongrass for tonight’s dinner. Met an old friend of ours from salsa. Haven’t seen her for years, five years at least, according to her. How time flies. Didn’t get the lemongrass, but I did get today’s PoD which looks as if it’s been taken with flash, but it was just low afternoon light. A lucky shot.

Tonight we were dancing for the final time in The Weavers. I won’t be sad to leave that horrible room with its strange angles. What we did do was produce a decent foxtrot and another ‘work in progress’ quickstep. After a long explanation of how to dance in any shape of room, we even managed to remove the corners of the room and turn them into gentle curves, just by altering stride length and not dancing in entirely straight lines. It worked!

G&Ts tonight to remove the rough edges of an awkward day. Much like The Dukes of Hazzard song “Staightenin’ the curves Flattenin’ the hills …”. Exactly like tonight’s dancing.

Tomorrow more dancing in the afternoon hopefully. In a proper room this time.

Dancing again – 2 March 2020

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Waltz, Foxtrot and Quickstep it that order. Luckily we sidestepped (pun intended) the Tango because there wasn’t enough time. Oh dear, what a shame 😉

There wasn’t much else to talk about today. I took the Red Juke out for a run in the afternoon and ended up at my favourite landscape viewing site between two big stands of Scots Pines over by Fannyside Moor. Today there was a grand view across to the Meikle Bin and the Campsie Fells. So that’s where today’s PoD came from. There wasn’t much point in having a colour version as there wasn’t much colour. Besides, in colour the snowy Meikle Bin in the distance was lost against the sky, but it stood out much more clearly in mono.

Waltz:
It was quite good. We managed a few rounds of the floor without too many mistakes. It would be wrong to say that it was perfect or even nearly perfect. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s certainly getting better. Danceable.

Foxtrot:
Not all that good yet. Some mistakes still, especially towards the end. The big problem I have here is that of navigating the floor. I believe the proper name for this is ‘floor craft’ I have a different name, but I won’t sully the blog with it. Not yet danceable.

Quickstep:
Despite a fairly lengthy practise session this morning, this is still a work in progress. It’s improving and again the problem I have is dancing round the corners. Needs more practise. Not yet danceable, but with a bit of work it could be.

Reporting Scotland suggests that there could be up to a quarter of a million Scots hospitalised by Coronavirus. In the actual report a figure of up to 200,000 was quoted. A fifth of a million. I suppose that’s what inflation is all about.

Scamp is out tomorrow morning to have coffee with Annette. I may paint.

Freedom! – 1 March 2020

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Sketching is fun and so is painting, but when you have to do it every day and also dance to someone else’s tune, it becomes work.

Today was the first day of March and that meant the inaccurately named 28 Drawings Later and Every Day in February were finished for me. It was fun for most of the time, but when it starts to resemble work, I have to draw a line (no pun intended). I’m quite happy to do the odd sketch as the notion takes me, but I’m also happy to let it lapse for a few days. All being well, I’ll probably take up the cudgels again in May for EDiM.

It seems the news people are having a field day with all the Coronavirus stuff. They’ve found a perfect way to take up hours of screen time giving us updates and filling our screens with stats and visual representations of how bad this virus thingy is. Most folk don’t really care all that much. Until it actually affects them, it’s just another blah blah blah that takes up too much time and deflects the serious news to the last five minutes of the program. The gigantic map behind the presenter with whole countries splashed in RED don’t really tell the whole story. Yes, there’s a case of the virus in Scotland, but because of that, the whole of Scotland is painted red. Someone somewhere has read and applied “How to Lie With Statistics”, a brilliant book written by Darrell Huff and as valid today as it was when it was first published in 1954.

So, today, after lunch I went for a walk in a soggy St Mo’s. Got today’s PoD which is a dried up looking hummock of moss growing on a branch of a dead tree. It’s amazing what interests photogs with a decent camera and a macro lens. Apart from startling a couple of deer, that was the only interesting thing that crossed my path today. A dull windy day which eventually turned to sleety rain, but not until much later.

Curry from the Spice Tailor range for dinner. I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad one. Didn’t read the instructions properly for this one and left the chilli in for a bit longer than necessary, but it was fine, just spicy enough.

Drove in to the Record Factory for Salsa tonight, but the music was so dire we left earlier than we’d intended. It wasn’t just us, either. Almost all of the ‘old school’ were complaining too. It seems that a lot of Jamie G’s ‘Advanced Class’ have now gone over to The Opposition, Sergio & Patricia. I can’t say I blame them. The move from the STUC building out to the West End hasn’t endeared Shannon to a lot of people and the fact that Jamie seems to be away from class more than he’s there is bound to affect the continuity of teaching. At least they now cancel his advanced classes when he’s not going to be there. That is a move in the right direction.

Spoke to JIC tonight and found out all about his short trip to Boston. Poor soul hardly got to see round the city at all. All work and no play by the sound of it. Never mind JIC, you have a week to enjoy the peace between studying, working from home and looking after Vixen!

Tomorrow is a Gems day, but we also need to cram in some dance. Hoping we make a better show of things tomorrow night.

A busy day indeed – 26 February 2020

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Well, I predicted it would be a busy day and for once I was completely … right!

Scamp was out in the morning to see Isobel. No coffee shop for them today Isobel phoned to ask her to come to the house instead. Too cold and with her dodgy knee, Isobel that is, she decided she’d stay at home. Quite right, I say.

While she was out I mused over what to do to cover today’s prompt, “Pink”. I eventually settled on a Pink Piglet, and so today’s sketch was born. Of course, if I’d been on the ball I’d have painted him on a page of my Pink Pig sketch book, but instead he’s on a page of the Seawhite sketch book! To start with he began to look more and more like a prominent politician, but then he began to mature into his piglet form. He’s based in part on a little piglet I painted in art class on a cruise a couple of years ago. I tried to remember all the tips the artist gave us, but after a while I just painted and it worked.

When Scamp returned, we had a swift lunch of toasted cheese on my salt and pepper bread then we were off to Falkirk Town Hall to our first Tea Dance. After 20 minutes and an aborted Saunter Together sequence dance I was ready to throw in the towel and go home, but Scamp was determined and we did get to do one of our jive fallbacks, the Seven Spins next. After that my mood lightened. At the tea break halfway through the two hour dance, a couple of people spoke to us, before that they’d been sizing us up I think. By the end of the tea break they knew we were beginners and started to encourage us up on to the floor and we started learning some of the sequence dances. Music was provided by a bloke playing a Korg keyboard and singing along to it. Perfect for us because the tracks were short enough so if we made mistakes, there was another tune along in a minute or two and we could make a sharp exit. All in all it was a success and we’re looking forward to the next one in a month’s time.

Back home, I finished the painting, photographed it and posted it. That was the only photo I took today. It was a clear day for the most part, but just after I’d posted the photo the snow started falling. It didn’t last, but for a while it looked as if it was on for the night.  As it happened, it was on and off all night. Next on the busy list was Wednesday dance class were we reprised the Quickstep from Monday and now it’s more firmly in my head. Not perfect yet and difficult to practise in our living room, but all the figures are now there and in the correct order, it’s just the details of the figures, the steps that need a bit of correcting. It will come. We finished with a Rumba One which we had been learninAnnoying loud music from the pub we practise in. I get the feeling some of the locals aren’t too pleased at our incursion into their territory. Hopefully Kirsty will find somewhere with a rectangular room and less noisy neighbours soon.

Today was a great help. Dancing on a dance floor among enough people to make it challenging without it being a difficulty. That’s what we’re both needing to master.

Also, this is the first time I’ve put a sketch as PoD and SoD. There just wasn’t enough time today to get a decent photo taken, so needs must.

Tomorrow, no plans as yet.