This is the night of the final Ball at Blair Atholl Castle. Pete and I have just finished a 'walk through' of the lesser known dances and are looking forward to a special festive meal before the ball. We've had a fabulous time attending the RSCDS Winter School based in the Atholl Palace Hotel in Pitlochry (Scotland). It is the second time I have been to the 'School' but although I try to describe it, the warmth, atmosphere, excitement, sheer joy that you can feel doing this type of thing is impossible to really understand until you've experienced it. Not everyone here is a brilliant dancer, not everyone is even a competent dancer, everyone is an enthusiastic dancer however; the classes are taken seriously, the teachers are amazing and the musicians even more so but it's as much about fun as footwork and formations. The hotel is amazing, there is a great spa - free to guests and it's great resting weary limbs in the steam room or jacuzzi - superb food, lovely staff and that special highland flavour of log fires and leather sofa's. The evening dances - again it is difficult to describe the feeling of being one of 100 + on the floor, all flying to the music - we've done brand new dances and very old dances, very easy dances and slightly tricky dances, even several 'round the room' dances which were amazing with so many people. Above the ankles we wish we could do it all over again right now, below the ankles we're glad there's about 6 months before there's even a remote chance of doing it all again!

Next week Pete & I are students ourselves at the RSCDS Winter School in Pitlochry, Scotland. I am reaaaaalllly looking forward to it. Preparing to leave however has been strangely stressful, giving thought to 3 weeks of dance programmes, (yesterday's + the 2 weeks we are away) preparing the music, allocating 'dance leaders' (so hopefully, everyone still gets a decent chance to dance as well as 'teach'), creating guide sheets for setting up the computer, speaker & an easier to use mic, printing the programmes and whittling down the class 'stuff' to the bare essentials took far longer than expected and wasn't particularly pleasant because it made me realize, yet again, how much we enjoy Tuesday evenings and I don't want to miss any of them! Last night we again had 37 at class - not exactly the same 37 as the week before however and an even larger proportion of 'newer' dancers; this meant that the programme, which actually only contained one 'new' dance - (in fact a very well known 'easy' dance but new to the majority of our class) became a definite challenge - it's very tricky teaching a new dance in the short time we have available, and especially tricky when we have 3 sets up to learn it! Everyone did amazingly well (luckily we still had some great visiting dancers to assist) - next week hopefully everyone will give it another go and it will quickly become a class staple like all the others on the next couple of week's programmes. We also tried having a break half way through the evening, as suggested at the AGM - this seems a good idea although it became over extended by the number of notices I gave out and we ended up having to cut out several dances, in future I'll set a timer so we (i.e. I ) don't get carried away again! I'll be updating this next week from Scotland. :-) 

An excellent meeting and Congratulations to the 2016-2017 Committee - those returning for another stint and to our new joint treasurers.  The business was completed with good humour and constructive comments and the food was all we hoped for - delicious! Pictures are available HERE of the meeting, but nothing of the meal... I was too busy eating!

And I thought last week was good! I've had 3 days of dance classes - Advanced on Sunday at our new venue, Thompson's Dance Studio; Beginners on Monday at the UKCA which is taking off brilliantly and was so much fun I didn't think it could be bettered, but last night's Tuesday class was, in modern parlance, 'Awesome' :-) We had 37 at class, and I keep on remembering little snap shot moments - more arriving when we already had 3 sets up for Butterscotch & Honey so they had to wait for everyone to cast up the dance before they could get through the door; welcoming more friends back to class; being told that one of our visiting couples, all of them dancers (lovely to see all of you), had travelled an hour or more from Limassol to be with us, and they enjoyed it so much they'll be back next week; pushing tables and chairs back and back again so a 4th set could be accommodated, the whoop at the end of 'Postie's Jig' when everybody got to the end, in the right place, at the right time, with the right partner (he, he) - the frustration of Monica's way.... we will get it end honest! And the fun of the 'Chorus' in Clutha as we finished a truly brilliant night. Thank you everybody... I can't wait 'till next week!

For the first time this year class numbers topped 30+ and like last week at least half of the class were beginners or less confident dancers; that would often mean a lot of people sitting out - enjoying the evening with a good chat to friends but not getting the chance to dance as much as other evenings when the proportions were different. Not last night, last night everyone danced to the extent that on a chilly evening with only one heater available we all warmed up so much that the room was festooned with discarded cardigans and jumpers - most of the time there were at least 2 sets on the floor, 4 dances were done with 3 sets up - and not all of them were simple dances. A very very well done to everyone for contributing to such a fun night - the only down side was that we completely forgot to mention any of the exciting events planned for the rest of the Spring season, an Edinburgh Tattoo night, a Weekend Workshop, and an end of Season Dance at the Elea - and first of course our AGM on the 13th of this month at the UKCA - we'll definitely have lots to talk about. See you next week.