It was a night of welcome surprises and unwelcome news... best wishes from all of us to those missing with health problems, we miss you so hurry back soon - though I'm sure you are doing your best, if only to get back to our super weather! In the meantime we really enjoyed the company of yet more dancing visitors and some very welcome and talented newcomers to the class, who all really enjoyed themselves and we hope that they will become regulars. Numbers were fairly low compared to the last few weeks but still topped the 30 mark and we had 3 or 4 sets up for virtually every dance, despite the large number of newcomers or relatively inexperienced dancers in the class - we even managed 2 sets up for both Trip to Bavaria and Best Set in the Hall. Waverley was great fun ... but we definitely need to revise Poussettes yet again - it's on the 'to do' list. Next week's programme is exactly the same as the Saturday night dance Programme for the Weekend Workshop so people can practice and work out which Dances they want to do... and if they haven't got tickets for the dance and have enjoyed the class, then they can book their tickets (they are only €5) and join in the dance even if they aren't attending anything else over the weekend - my sentences are getting a bit out of hand, so it's probably time to stop. I have a whole load of photographs to upload so I will try and do that tomorrow - look for them on the 'photies' page - under 'SOCIETY' above

I don't just do dancing stuff... though I do do a lot of that; I also do lots of other things too such as running this little but very active website;  it is a labour of love which is definitely baring fruit - not only are we linking our members both here and overseas, providing a powerful teaching tool for those of us who dance, advertising our events and attracting more and more visiting dancers, the website actually topped '300 visitors a week' last week for the first time... now that is a laughably small number to many people - but we are a very small society (only just over 40 members), within a very small community, in a small city, on a small island - and this is a website that employs no 'arts to attract' ;-) so, although I can't quite understand why we are attracting this attention I am still pretty chuffed. 
This week's Tuesday class was the first time this year we've had all the windows open, and the fans on, even before anyone arrived; last year we may have discarded our jumpers but the windows were still firmly shut... however despite it being the warmest April we've experienced on the Island so far, the breeze kept us all nice and cool and it was actually a perfect temperature for dancing - the surprisingly low humidity probably helped. Having the windows open certainly made it seem much more spacious - it made it feel like there were a lot fewer people than normal so it was a surprise to check the register and see that numbers were well up (34 in fact - with 3 or 4 sets up most of the time). Later it was commented that the classes in general were getting more popular - I had thought so myself but weekly comparisons with last year's numbers didn't show much difference however I have just checked the overall picture rather than individual weeks - and in fact we are  up by more than 40 (adjusting for the fact that last year we had two weeks cancelled due to no electricity in the Hall) - and compared to the 16 weeks before Christmas we are over 100 ahead.. incredible!

This week I knew the class was going to be different ... a full set of our usual dancers were away for one reason or another, but not only were some of our regular 'swallows' due back, I had also been contacted by several holidaying dancers hoping to join us for the night - always a great pleasure but also an unknown quantity - although SCD has very standardized formations the number of dances overall is huge so although our dance programme included many popular and well known dances there was bound to be some unfamiliar to our guests, and even to people who haven't danced with us for a while. Of course there was no need to worry, our guests were all excellent dancers and very generous with their skills - in fact inspiring many of our class to greater feats than ever before.. so I just wish they were here all the time!  Looking back at last week I must say thank you to all the organizers of the 'Edinburgh Tattoo' night and all the staff at the First and Last Pub who really helped to make it a fabulous evening - after all there's nothing like free drink and excellent food to get Scottish hearts racing even without the excitement of the Tattoo! P & I went round and had another meal there yesterday and the food was just as good even without the pipe bands and dancers - I thought I'd let you know :-) 

This has been, and continues to be, an extremely busy week; 3 different dance classes; a computer club lecture; video and photoshop work; the Tattoo night tomorrow and lots and lots of gardening  It's not that surprising that I'm a bit tired but on the other hand its such great fun (and I like gardening). Too tired to write though so see you all tomorrow I hope. 

It's nice to be right... and well done to all the dancers who had another go at the dancing disaster's of last week and de-disastered them - Also to those newcomer's and returnees who were dragged way beyond their comfort zone and managed far more than they ever thought they could! It was a slightly deceptive night - it felt like there were fewer of us than normal but in fact we welcomed many newcomers and returnees who kept the numbers up despite many missing regulars - the difference was merely in the volume of noise they made :-) . We will be welcoming many more returnees in the next few weeks - a consolation for the loss of friends returning home after spending winter or spring with us - it's also lovely to be contacted, via the website, by UK dancers who are holidaying here soon and hope to join us for a class or two, I love having visiting dancers but I'm well aware that it's the quality of the welcome that the rest of the class gives them (because I'm usually busy) that keeps them coming back - and sends them away with tales of a wonderful night on the tiles!! ;-) On a different note, I hope everyone has bought their tickets and booked their meal for the showing of the Edinburgh Tattoo next week - if not get in touch with Irene (her details are on the contact page) - we also have the addition of Steak and Ale pie to the food options so if anyone would prefer this to the choice they have already made - let Irene know ASAP. See you soon