Last week's excellent dance sessions have been overshadowed slightly by the dreaded lurgy finally being confirmed in the household. Having said that, although I myself have a recurrent sore throat, and have been feeling desperately tired, I haven't tested +ve and P himself has improved enough to take charge of the washing up again - in a very well ventilated kitchen, and with surface sterilizer to hand. We've come off fairly lightly and though the timing could have been better - we were very sorry to have missed some special celebrations - it could also have been worse. I have cancelled this Monday's beginner's class, but since it's Green Monday I'm sure several people will be glad of that anyway. Hopefully by Tuesday evening we'll be raring to go again - and if not, I'm sure Jean and the ladies behind the bar will be happy to serve us a drink or two to drown our sorrows at missing a dance or two ;-)

Dance - Romance -Dance -Romance - no contest, definitely dance! Well for me and several others at least. Of course it might also have been influenced by my other half being away, but I know he'd feel the same if he was here, especially since on Valentine's Day dancing is definitely cheaper!
As expected our Tuesday night social session was a little thin on the ground, however we had more than enough turn up for 'a set and some over' including a new Tuesday attendee who, having danced as a child has rapidly advanced from the Monday class. We also had the benefit of other occasional attendees being present, so with such quality at our disposal we had a go at several much more energetic and mentally demanding dances than we've attempted in the last few weeks! Well done everyone, because it was a very steep learning curve and not everyone was as focused as they should have been - e.g. me! The dances may not have been exactly executed as written - but they were spirited attempts and who's to say our versions weren't just as good as the originals! (though I'm sure we'll eventually settle on the originals )
I'm looking forward to welcoming back many of our regulars next week but we've proved we can have just as much fun with smaller numbers, as we do with larger ones, which is always a good feeling.

About this time last week I thought to myself, I must update the blethers - then decided to wait a day so that I could comment on the Tuesday class, as well as the Monday Beginners' session. Fatal!
So it's now 2 weeks since my last blethering update - of course I blame the weather. It's not really fair to complain of the cold when, after wrapping up warmly this afternoon, I got down to the Phoenix Club for the Monday afternoon class and promptly had to unwrap 3 layers - don't get too excited, I had 5 layers onto start with - but it was a nice comfortable temperature with just a T-shirt on - but then I return home and I'm back in the Arctic! Fair enough we're 2000 feet up, but such a drastic change of temperature is hard to get used to - hence brain freeze and a distinct tendency to hibernate until at least May. Just as well I have the dancing to warm me up.
Well done, as usual, to everyone who is soldiering on with the beginner's sessions - we are speeding along a bit - with the inevitable confused moments - but when we come to recap the stuff we did a couple of weeks ago people will start to appreciate how much they have learnt. And it's lots of fun too. The number of dancers on Tuesday's has dipped a bit, but it's lovely that people are dropping in to just say hi and have a chat even if they can't dance, so it's a great atmosphere. Tomorrow we may be a bit thin on the ground because it's Valentine's day - or we may not - it'll be a fun night either way ! 

There is always one class, at least, per year when many of our regulars all manage to be away at the same time. This week was that class. Ironically Pete and I had committed to arriving super early to make sure we were all set up before the hoards arrived, so thank goodness for the few who did turn up! Having said that, we had a really enjoyable night - there were enough people to do some excellent dances without exhausting ourselves completely, and with the fewer numbers we could use our time constructively. We took the opportunity  to walk through a couple of the newer dances even more thoroughly than normal, as well as Mairi's Wedding, several times, as we get everyone more and more familiar with it's intricacies. 
Sadly the Thursday Folk Night, that several of us arranged to attend, has had to be cancelled due to Covid issues (not involving us directly, thankfully) but no doubt the group will get together in some other activity. Roll on next week.