This will be a very short Blether, despite having lots I'd like to say. I am currently in a snowy UK looking forward to a trip up to Scotland for a night of dancing in the Hameland. I hope everyone enjoyed their Tuesday night's class without me ! I know that you will have been ably looked after and will have enjoyed having a few different dances to do now that the requirement to practice Ball dances are now over for another year. The Ball itself went well, the food, as always, was fabulous and people danced till they dropped. I have quite a lot of follow up work to do once I am back home - the Ball Portraits will be on their way next week, once I am back in sunshine to finish them and other memories will be posted on this website - remember there are always lots to see under the Past Events link. I'll see you all soon- keep dancing Jx
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One day to go until the Ball and my printer is practically on it's mechanical knees. I have to confess to a certain amount of stress, but everything is under control as far as possible. No time to blether though my cat is doing his best to add his opinion of the activities, his fascination for the keyboard is getting a little inconvenient! I look forward to seeing all of you who are joining us for the ball tomorrow night. After that you will have a break from me for a while as P & I are off dancing in Scotland - Tuesday classes will be carrying on as normal however so don't panic.
We had an excellent night, as usually is the case on Tuesday nights; it was sad to say goodbye to some of our regulars as they head home for the winter months - swallows in reverse - but we welcomed back several others, and that was lovely. We are still missing several of our regulars and our numbers are lower than usual for this time of year but managing to get 3 sets up keeps it all in perspective - that used to quite an achievement just a few years ago. This time of year is when we always have a 'change over', autumn visitors head back to the UK before the flight prices increase but conversely a few winter visitors will start to appear and it's lovely to see them again.
Next week is the final class before the St Andrew's Ball at the Kamares Club. There are still plenty of tickets available and despite being disappointed by the band it is sure to be an excellent night. If you haven't got your ticket yet because you are unsure whether you'll enjoy it, please give it a go, it's an excellent night's entertainment even without getting up to dance and there are always a few 'ceilidh' dances on the programme so even non-dancers can get on the floor and work off a bit of the amazing buffet they always prepare for us. Hopefully I will see you there. Jx This more than usually busy, active but successful week, on other fronts, has now been completely overshadowed by dreadfully disappointing news. The local musicians, who the committee had taken the extremely brave decision to engage for the St Andrew's Ball (not without a lot of trepidation but with the real hope that they might be developing a very valuable local talent/resource) have, with less than 3 weeks to go, pulled out of the engagement. They have their reasons, and it's not the first time that events have suffered a last minute loss of musicians, but so much hard work and care goes on behind the scenes for this annual 'signature event' and such a lot of time has been spent trying to encourage/help the band that it is a double blow - however lack of live music doesn't mean we will lack music! The ball itself will still be excellent, and although we may lack the 'magic' touch of live music there won't be any other difference, in fact there is the benefit that the music we dance to will be the tunes we are familiar with - some dancers are experienced enough to enjoy dancing to varied tunes and tempos but most of us find it easier when the music is familiar, especially when the surroundings are unfamiliar and we've just enjoyed an excellent meal! ( Just call me Pollyanna :-) )
We had another excellent night of dancing at the class - although we were down several regulars.... (I hope you are all okay?) we still had 4 sets up for some of the dances and some truly hilarious moments - I just love Tuesdays, and it's wonderfully obvious that so do lots of you too ! See you all next week I hope Jx Last Saturday night the UKCA club in Chlorakas resounded to the sound of pipes, fiddles and lots of dancing and marching around as last year's Edinburgh Military Tattoo was shown on the club's big screen. We had a truly delicious, and huge meal - proving yet again Debbie's reputation as a superb cook is well deserved - which was followed by the showing of the video. The combination of good food and drink and dimmed lights were worrying for some but the Tattoo was such excellent entertainment I'm pretty sure no-one did nod off... or if you did I didn't notice you! We had tried to get the recording of this year's Tattoo, but unfortunately it wasn't released in time, however we didn't miss out by seeing last year's event instead because it was truly excellent - after 2 hours of sitting still my posterior was completely numb but that was the first time I was aware that so much time had passed! Following the video we then moved down to a sing-song at the bar. The band managed to cover most of the well known songs and ballads, but for me the best bit wasn't a song at all, a short bit of playing the whistle/pipe/recorder thingy, was the best bit of all. Overall it was an excellent and successful social night - which hopefully we'll repeat.
On Tuesday we also had another excellent night of dancing - back to 30 people and a warm night with windows open and a great atmosphere. Amazing to think that one week before we were dancing through a storm. We had some lovely guests who managed some really challenging dances - I'm not sure if they realised how very good they were to manage so much so quickly. On a sadder note we are already starting to say goodbye to autumn visitors, though only until they are back again which is some consolation and I look forward to seeing the rest of you next week :-) Jx |
MeOriginated in Manchester, England: Worked almost 20 yrs in the United Arab Emirates: Lives in Cyprus. Teaches Scottish Country Dancing (RSCDS qualified 2015) -just the average life! Also loves Photography & Photoshop, Gardening, Music, Sewing, Design, Reading, computers, God, my husband & my cats (not necessarily in that order). Hates - crowds, hypocrisy, 'Reality' TV, corrupt politicians, cruelty and greed of any kind. Archives
January 2025
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