I wonder if any of the regular visitors to this site ever notice the counter on the 'contact' page? Most weeks I remember to update it so that the weekly number of visitors to the site is shown accurately; it never fails to amaze me how many we have. We never drop below 200 visitors and, on average, a 1000 pages are looked at per week. (our maximum weekly total so far is 353 individuals looking at 1,746 pages!)
This week another two holidaying dancers found us via the website, and it was wonderful to host such lovely and generous dancers, they were very complimentary about the class and the website so of course they had to be wonderful people ;-) . Since SCD is such a small community, despite being a world wide one, it wasn't long until we found friends in common, which is also one of the fun things about this type of activity. 
As I predicted last week, although the numbers were exactly the same, the class had a different composition yet again - fewer experienced dancers in this case - so the class did amazingly well to get through a fun, but sometimes challenging programme because getting 3 sets up meant that some sets had more than one beginner ... but everyone surpassed themselves and we got through the whole programme, keeping our cool not just with the aid of the Air Conditioners. 
We are now entering unknown territory; this is the first year we've kept the class going into July. Having the AC's means that we can still dance despite the heat, but we have no idea what class numbers will be like, however we shall see... the last class of this season will be July 24th so we are now on the countdown, 4 classes to go. But before that if you are one of the lucky ones to have got a ticket, we'll see you on Friday to dance in the moonlight at the Elea - it's going to be great. Jx

Of course, it never can actually be the same week twice - but holding the same type of dance session, in the same country, city, & venue, on the same day of the week, with the same people running it, it wouldn't be unreasonably to feel a degree of repetition creeping in, despite the weekly variation in the dance programme. Whether we should congratulate ourselves on it or not (I actually think we should, variety is definitely the spice of life, at least up to a point) there never does seem to be a week that turns out to be identical to the week before.
This week we had our usual slightly different selection of core dancers from the previous week, including returning 'beginners', - always a relief to know we haven't put these nice people off - and in addition we received a return visit from intrepid holidaying dancer Nicolas. He not only travelled all the way from Larnaca (and back) on the bus to join us (for what unfortunately turned out to be just a few dances) but he took the trouble to bring, and wear, his complete formal highland costume. He looked amazing... and it was certainly a very good thing we had the A.C.'s because otherwise the poor man would have melted. As always the class was delighted to welcome a holidaying dancer and in addition to the Reel of the 51st Division, we at least managed to dance some of the lesser known dances on our programme while he was with us; including the lovely strathspey The Rose of the North with the definitely uncommon 3 couple rights & lefts formation. Next week no doubt there will be something different again to report - unfortunately we'll have said goodbye to another of our regular dancing visitors, but no doubt we'll be saying hello to others, both visitors and returnees. Jx

What an unusual night... P and I left home as thunder rumbled in the distance but little did we know that we were leaving just before the heaven's opened, We headed down the hill to set up the class in sublime ignorance of the rain waters that were about to cascade down the roads behind us, and in fact we never saw any of it, but those intrepid few who made it to the class did indeed have an interesting journey - well done them! Many regulars where kept away by the conditions for one reason or another so we might have had our smallest class yet this season, but on this unlikely night we were delighted to welcome 4 newcomers to the class. Despite natural reluctance to commit themselves to the dance floor they all did remarkably well, dancing multiple times despite the programme being a challenging one for total newbies. Next week I'll make sure the programme includes a few more suitable dances for people attempting to learn in our fun, but undeniably challenging, classes (all of them will be from the St Andrew Ball programme, so they will be a useful inclusion). As usual our regular dancers (including our lovely dancing visitor) demonstrated how welcoming they are to new dancers - making sure they had partners for the dances that they could sensibly attempt; despite the many missing people we several times managed to get 2 sets up for even 4 couple dances.  I look forward to seeing everyone back next week when hopefully we'll have just as enjoyable a night without such interesting weather!. Jx 

'It was all change again last Tuesday as several of our regulars joined us for their last class before flying home for the summer - and we welcomed back friends who have been away. The heat outside was forgotten thanks to the wonderful air conditioning and with everyone in the room (including myself for a change) dancing, we managed to get 3 sets onto the floor on several occasions even when the dance needed 4 couples. It was a night of achievement as some successfully tackled Pelorus Jack with it's unusual 'alternating tandem 1/2 reels of 3' for the first time and 'The Bee's' was introduced as a new dance to many  in the class. The 'proper' music had arrived for Ramadan-ce at the end of last week (6 days from the order going in, which was pretty good I think) so I kept it on the programme for one more week so we could dance to it. I even got to dance it myself, which was a bit of a shock because despite walking it through and dancing it in my head so many times to work out how to teach it I have never, in fact, danced it myself. Luckily I didn't quite disgrace myself (thanks Ann :-) )! I hope to see those who can make it next week, and to everyone who is heading home, or there already, have a great Summer and we look forward to seeing you again in a few weeks time. Jx P.S. we are now taking money for the Picnic in the Park - anyone who has reserved a ticket try and remember to bring your money to class next week.

I had a bit of a shock when I logged on just now to update the website. I read the last 'blether' on this blog and thought I'd lost one, but no, it really was the last time I updated this - it's just that so much has been happening these last couple of weeks that it all seems so long ago. P and I have just finished videoing a friend's daughter's fabulous wedding, but we were also involved with a small amount of the organising and quite a bit of the pre-wedding socialising - with many of the guests visiting Cyprus for the first time it was a really great reminder of what a lovely place we live in. We've also been invited out so many celebrations of birthdays, bbq's and general getting-togethers time has been flying by in the nicest but most distracting way possible. Finding time to update the site has been a bit of a challenge - (partly because of the thunder storms recently) and I completely forgot to organise the Sunday class - so apologies all round. Tuesday was  not effected by all the surrounding activity however and as usual it was a great night with a few welcome returnees balancing the loss of friends who have now returned home for the summer - though we are obviously still in their minds because I have just received this clipping from John - very apt and we all know it's so true - though I don't think we should wait until we are in any sort of decline!