Out at our usual Saturday morning time for our usual Saturday morning class in our usual Saturday morning destination.
Sometimes our lives are so predictable.
We drove over to Brookfield to find the hall still full of tiny dancers, although at least one of them was riding a three wheeled scooter across the floor, instead of dancing. They were 15 minutes late in leaving the dance floor and there were hundreds of the small creatures. I don’t think Jane was impressed with the lack of consideration of the parents or the dance teachers, the weans were just being posh weans. I think words will be said at the next committee meeting.
Once the posh brats had left the building … with their weans in tow, we got down to dancing. Real dancing. We started with a nearly forgotten Mambo Marina. I thought it was only me, but I was wrong. There were quite a few puzzled faces. Once that was ironed out, we danced a gradually improving version of it for two tracks. Then it was into the Cha-Cha we’ve been learning for a month or so and it was working quite well. Both Stewart and Jane gave pointers throughout the dance, but of course I ignored them and concentrated on getting round the floor without tramping on Scamp’s toes while trying to fit the correct module into the correct space. Not always easy, especially when the teacher says you can do them in any order, but queries your choice of order!
Next was Ria Bachata, the bachata that was never a bachata with music that was never bachata music. Other than that, it was fine and we managed the ‘tricky steps’. Step tap, step tap, 1,2,3 together. Then 1,2,3 together on the other foot. Simples. Done to a bachata beat with bachata timing it works, but with a fast track with no audible bachata beat it’s just a recipe for disaster. Since this is a bit of fun that nobody is expected to remember, that’s probably the desired result.
Next was a Mayfair Quickstep to allow our brains to cool down followed by a Catherine Waltz, parts of which I remembered and parts of which returned to my consciousness as we danced it. Eventually, it worked and we managed a fairly decent flow of waltz steps. Usually by this time I’ve reached the “My brain is full” stage, but today I was ready for the next one which was a fairly easy Midnight Jive. So much crammed into an hour and a half or an hour and a quarter if you take into account the ‘brat time’ at the start. Still, I enjoyed it. A strange thing for me to say on a Saturday night.
We drove home, had a cup of coffee and headed back out again to have lunch at Mango in Longcroft. It does Italian and Indian, but we both had Indian today. Food was good, but the chopped up naan bread was a disappointment. I much prefer the big slab of scorched dough we get in Hamilton. This was daintily set out in a bowl, but was almost warm and dry. We’re used to naan dripping with ghee. This wasn’t at all like that. Curry was good, and so was the pakora starter, but next time no naan.
I needed a photo and drove down to the canal at Haggs. Unfortunately the sun had disappeared by the time we got to the canal and I inadvertently set the ISO to 40,000 which is a tad higher than the 1,600 I’d meant to set. Some of the photos looked like I’d dusted them with sand when I took them! Still, a slow shutter shot of water breaking over the Forth & Canal lock gates saved the day and got PoD.
When we got home I found that Jamie and Sim had sent videos of the transformation of their house into a gigantic Christmas parcel, complete with Halloween scary mummy! Fascinating to see the 16th century method of hand crafting a roof, but I’m sure they will feel so much warmer and more secure with the 21st century tech replacing it.
Later we watched another contestant reaching his limit on Strictly. He might have a nice smile, but I feel he has, as we used to say at school, “plateaued”. I may be wrong, but the two armchair judges here say his time is up.
Tomorrow is Sunday and I’m hoping for a lazy day.