Lindybop Lindyhop lobster

Good Evening, Villagers!

Hope all is well with you.

I generally dislike Wednesdays (mostly due to just ONE class grrrr) but this was one was quite fun.  After an awkward start with a class (one horrid child) they managed to pull it together and perform well as did the other year 4 class. In Singing assembly, because it is Shakespeare week, I taught the kids to sing Henry VIII's Pastime with good company, which we accompanied with our timpani playing a drone ostinato that set it off remarkably well. Survived the horrid class and had a good one (except WHY will they always try to cheat in Music Vocabulary Bingo. There's always ONE!) and then after school I did a Tudor Dance one-off session for years 3-6. Had about 24 children which was a nice number. Most of them had done in it year 4 when I taught them but there were about 7 year 3's as well. It worked really well. We learnt Branle des Lavandieres and a simple, but effective, dance to Pastime with Good company.    It made for a jolly end to the school day. 

CBC and I went swing dancing almost two weeks ago and it gave me a chance to wear my Christmas present from CBC- a Lindy Bop dress. I love it when someone buys me a dress! Yay!

I got the idea to do red accessories from Louise at Polka Dots and Freckle Spots who wore a similar dress with red. Charity-shopped red Monsoon cardie, George dalamation spot shoes and Erstwilder brooch plus a hair flower.  We tried to take pictures out a the Kursaal where the dance was. It was the 7th Anniversary of JiveSwing teaching in Southend so it was really nice to go along and celebrate that.   All the photos or nearly all were rubbish at the Kursal apart from this one

...which was still dark and grainy!

So you get some photos from my entrance corridor to my home with its speckled wallpaper, doormat and vanity case!

Hope all is well with you.
xxx

1 more get-up...

BEDM 16 Date night

I'm hoping to be experiencing some facets of my favourite parts of a date night tonight at my sister-in-law's wedding! Many congratulations to lovely her and her new husband!

Perfect date night is the precis for the day!

Mine will be as such:

• It should of course, include my husband CBC!
• We will go out to dinner first.  It will be inexpensive and will either be Thai or nice light/quality Wagamama/Chinese/Vietnamese cuisine. Tofu will definitely be on the menu. There will be lots of it.
• Should include dancing. Of the swing-dance variety. Lindy, Charleston, East Coast Swing
• It should be in a large, well ventilated room.
• There will be a live band.
• I should be dressed in my finest sleeveless 50's inspired dress. Anything from Cath Kidston or Lindybop will do. It must be cotton and not be prone to wardrobe mishaps. It must also have a really cute print or really elegant and striking in one colour.
• Shoes will not make my feet sweat.
• CBC will be up for dancing and won't get self-conscious about the fact he is out of practice and can't remember more moves. He will either remember more moves or will not mind repeating the same ones.
• We will also both get to dance with other people too so we can excitedly talk about what moves we tried out later.
• There will be lots of snacks to eat like Jiveswing do best.
• It won't be too far from home, we can get back quickly.
• We won't get back hideously late.
• Previously in the day, we will have been for a glorious natural walk and we will be calm, rested and eager to dance.

That's my ideal date.

What about yours?

Love Kezzie

xxx

Goodnight Sweetheart

I write this with greatly aching muscles almost 24 hours after CBC and I left Goodnight Sweetheart, our swing dance weekend.  I don't have masses of amazing photos, the quality is pretty rough particularly as many were from the evenings but I thought I'd write about our experiences.

CBC picked me up from school on Friday evening and having had an awful headache all day, I was really in no mood for dancing, travelling or anything other than collapsing in an exhausted heap.  We travelled to Watford, getting caught in pretty dismal traffic so it took a long time.  Eventually we arrived, found some parking and headed off to Beachgrove to the Baptist church which was the venue.  The church building is incredible, they have SUCH good facilities there.  We signed in and received our wristbands and programmes for our Intermediate ability group and headed off across town to a gym for our first taster dance.  This was a Balboa class, which is a faster form of swing dance that was developed when the dance floors got too crowded for lindy and for fast tracks. It is danced in a closer hold than Lindy and involves smaller steps. We did some work on moving around the floor.  It was quite a small room so it was lucky there weren't too many of us.  Jon and Jenna who were our teachers,from Nashville, were fantastic, really clear, informative and great fun in their teaching style.

After the class, we headed off to the church to get changed for the evening opening dance. It was a bit yucky having to get ready without a shower, a distinct disadvantage of not staying in Watford but driving home each evening.  Eventually, at 9pm, the party began.  The theme was 1920's and there was a great band, The Last Chance Ragtime Band.


Dodgy photo quality (phone as battery ran out on camera) but this is what I wore-a modern drop-waisted dress bought from some dodgy shop at some point plus charity shop pearl necklaces, gloves from Accessorize ages ago and a primark silk scarf plus an amazing vintage beaded bag J bought for me.

The dancing was great fun although I did have a headache still so didn't do loads.
The teachers were all introduced. The thing I like about JiveSwing and Joseph, the director of the dance group is how family and friendly they are.
 Finally, we left at about midnight to drive home (an hour), feeling hideously exhausted, getting to bed at 1.30am.

The next day, we set off at about 9.30am, feeling  absolute wrecks. We decided to skip the taster class and headed off for porridge and tea in a trendy artisan coffee house who gave me an egg timer with my tea! CBC, ever the romantic, had demanded we bring along a book of love poems we'd got from my Grandad's collection, so he could write my Valentines card (we were yet to write them)

I should point out that we ate very well that weekend. Delicious vegetarian fettucine in Ask on Saturday lunchtime, more wonderfulness at Wagamamas in the evening on both days.

Saturday's first class was in a really crowded room and I felt really dreadful and to my horror, started to cry in the class,so I had to take 5 minutes outside.  The first lesson with Jenna and John again was good though was mostly about technique rather than learning new steps. CBC really liked them. I liked them but would have liked to learn something new.

After a lunch break of 3 hours in which we moved the car, went to Ask and bought some things in Tiger (a new umbrella and a picture frame)  we headed off to our next class withDave Madison from San Fransisco, who is a blues teacher. He did some work with us on Musicality and listening to the music to form your lindy moves.  It was useful and in a better room.  After this was the best class of the day with Fabien Vrillon from France and Lisa Clarke from the UK.  They taught us 3 really cool Lindy moves which we added to our repertoire.  I thought they had a really cool and gentle dance teaching style and were my favourite teachers of the day.

The final class was a Performance class with Alison Marsh.  We were learning a choreographed routine to 'Love me or leave me' with elements we had to decide on ourselves. This was great fun and had the added bonus/terror of our having to perform it in front of the whole of the GNSH audience on Sunday night.  I love learning routines so it was a great end to the lessons.

After a brief trip to Primark to buy some much needed clean socks, a hand towel (and some tartans shorts to wear under my dress- we'd forgotten things) we had meal in Wagamamas with some other dancers from the Southend class we used to go to.

Again, we really felt like a shower would be lovely after all the sweating of the day but had to be content with washing faces in the toilets and the wonders of cleansing wipes!

The evening ball kicked off at 9pm again. I wore the Lindybop green dress CBC had bought me for Christmas (featured before but only the bottom half was visible) together with a Crown and glory silver heart bandeau. Pity you can't see it properly as it is enormous! It was ideally 1940's night but I don't have anything that I could dance in of that era/inspiration.



I was accompanied by my very own Matt Smith Doctor Who in Bow tie (Bow ties are cool) and tweed suit (and I am linking him up to TARDIS Tuesday for that reason!).  He did look handsome!

We had a few dances and danced a few with some other people. I had a bit of a crisis of confidence about my dancing. I wish I had the bravery to ask more people to dance but I was in a bit of a spiral of 'I am terrible, nobody wants to dance with me, I must avoid eye contact so they don't have to dance with me if they don't want to" which I know is stupid but since I had been feeling unwell and was still tired, this was to be expected.  The teachers cabaret was amazing! Those teachers are so talented! There was also a great Andrews sisters-style group called the Polka Dot Dolls.  Finally, we headed home at about 12.40am feeling very very tired!

The next morning, we headed off to Watford at 9.30 for a rehearsal for our performance group. It was at this point, I was volunteered for a central role by our teacher who loved what I did for the 'Blue, blue, blue' bit of the song and was made to stand in the middle and do my over-exaggerated looking miserable for that part.  Apparently I had everyone in fits of laughter and people were coming up to me all day saying they loved it.  The dance evolved from a routine to a staged and polished performance with rotation of partners and stage positions. There was one cool moment where we made a roueda with our partners and rotated like a wheel between partners. The whole process of putting the dance together over the hour yesterday and this day was hideously fun and a great bonding experience.   We went straight into a Lindy class with Joseoh Sewell which was originally about improving some basic moves but we learnt a cool move called the Pop which involved some fast spinning (which usually means me careering off to the right)- I am not so good at double spinning and ended up treading on many toes and accidentally punching one partner in the face!

After a chilled lunch, we headed to  more lindy classes with Jon/Jenna and Lisa/Fabien,both fun.  I definitely preferred the one with Lisa and Fabien where we learnt some impressive looking Charleston variation moves.

The final class was a taster class in Blues with Dave Madison again.Blues was a dance form that came before Lindy and is much slower.  We did some basic moves and getting the basic technique which is a lot more chilled than Lindy.

The final night was 'casual dress' although everyone really made an effort. I wore my Cath Kidston comic strip dress (sorry forgot to take photos), put on a simple heartprint Crown and Glory headscarf and didn't bother with the make-up!

I feel a lot more confident tonight, perhaps it was people being so nice about the routine? Anyway, I asked a few guys to dance which worked out well and fun. I had a couple of really fun dances particularly with a guy from my class and a guy from Hamburg who I had chatted to earlier.

We sat down to watch the Euro Jack and Jill Lindy competition. This is basically a competition where people enter individually.  They then have to social dance to the music that is played and then dance with three different partners. Since they have not rehearsed together (as they don't know who they will be matched with), nor can do they know which music will be played, they are being judged purely on their following or leading skills. It is incredible to watch!!!

There was also a solo Jazz competition, where the competitors dance alone. The winner was this amazing crazy, quirky girl who won it last year. She's the one in the boiler suit below.

The next item was the Authentic Jazz performance (they were a set of people doing this exclusively all weekend) which was very impressive, then it was time for our routine!

You can see some pictures below of us in action. That's me in the navy polka dot dress (these are from the rehearsal)













It went well and people were very complimentary.  A teacher from Essex said if she started a performance group in Essex, she wanted us to be in it. I was a bit scared at that- I can do comedy but I am no performing dancer!

The band was my favourite one- the Pete Long Swing Band, who featured guitars, double bass, piano, clarinet and vibraphone. They were really virtuosic.

We had a few more dances and even headed off to the Blues room a bit later. Finally set off for home at about 1.45am ahrgh, which was rather late and it was extremely foggy. Somehow made it home alive, achy but very happy.  I'm so glad we decided to go to this camp, it was remarkable fun and I would love to do it again. I'd definitely stay there next time though- the driving wasn't too fun! As I said before, I love the way that Joseph runs Jive Swing, it does feel very inclusive, friendly and like the Jive Swing groups from all around Essex and Hertfordshire are one family. It takes a special group of people to do that.

Sorry this was a bit long but I really wanted to record how I felt about it!

xxx

Linking to TARDIS Tuesday with Maricel

By St Martin's

We headed into London today to meet some friends for dinner (more on that in another post) and it was my chance to wear my main Christmas present from CBC- this green Lindybop dress. Alas, CBC had bought it for me in the wrong size but the replacement fits well.  I can recommend Lindybop from my experience so far- 100% cotton frocks, good sizing, reasonable pricing, very comfortable and very pretty.

Here I paired it with Clarks shoes and black tights then added a thrifted black Peterpan collar blazer and added a River Island white fur colour I bought in the sale. Abbacino handbag (charity-shopped/thrifted) to finish off, and wore my hair up (bad move- ears accentuated!)

It was luckily a crisp day, fairly bright so we had a fairly warm time of it.

The restaurant, Les Deux Salons, was near St Martin-in-the-fields and English National Opera and of course Trafalgar Square.

It was really nice to go up to London in daylight and to see those particular friends.  One of them was saying that since they bought their flat 2.5 years ago, it has gone up in value by £150,000. Isn't that absolutely ludicrous about house prices in London. I didn't not realise JUST how crazy the increases have been! They are very lucky to have bought it when they did (and done it up themselves) as they both work in universities and otherwise couldn't ever have afforded somewhere in London

After dinner, CBC and I headed towards Trafalgar square where our first sight was of the fourth plinth with its blue cockerel that mocks slightly, all the statues of people.


Then we saw the French silent protest against the events of the week in France. It was truly surreal seeing all the people standing in silence with their I am Charlie signs.  It seemed very peaceful.  It has been an awful week for many people around the world and my heart and prayers go out to ALL involved,  or indeed, those who may be blamed by association of faith (which is like saying all Catholics belong to the IRA)  but particularly in Paris and I cannot say anything more other than what has been said but that I wish people, who have issues, could deal with them in a decent, human manner. Satyrists, particularly in this case can be very, very hurtful and offensive but that's what I thought libel cases and suing someone are for. Do things in a human way and within the confines of the laws.  I sometimes feel we are dealing with very dangerous children- makes me think of Lord of the flies.  I hope and pray that the events of the months that follow will have love and compassion at the fore. I don't know how that can be achieved, but I can only hope and pray it will be so.


We saw Boris Johnson speaking as we were there.



I hope you are all well and safe, sending you hugs.

xxx


Linking to Visible Monday with the ever wonderful Patti at Not dead yet style

Creative Mondays with Claire Justine

Dancing in the moonlight

On Saturday, CBC and I decided to head into London to go to the London Swing Dance Society's Saturday Night Swing Club.  We haven't been to it for well on a year, I'm sure.  We wondered whether to go or not, sometimes it seems hard work, the thought of going up to London, the cost, the time involved, the thought that we should be doing work.  But we decided that we MUST go and not stay at home and regret it.  We had a super time, did some dancing together on the social dancing floors and went to three classes.  The first was a Charleston class- solo charleston with a Catrine Ljunggren which was great fun, followed by a cool dance called Peasbody, named after a large man in the 30's who developed a new style of dancing to accommodate his large tummy! Finally, we did some Blues with Catrine. I always feel self-conscious with the blues- it's a very close dance and it can come across a bit sleezy though it isn't supposed to be.  You tend to find that anyone who isn't English is totally ok with it and us English girls feel a bit self-conscious and embarrassed.

At this point, we had to head back in order to get the 00:10 train.  The Magpie and Stump, where the night is held, is near the Old Bailey.  You can walk into Paternoster Square and see this beautiful nighttime view of St Paul's Cathedral.  The city of London is very beautiful at night, especially all the buildings that are lit up. It's amazing how deserted it is when it is so busy during the working day and even the weekend.




I decided to wear this red halter-neck dress for the night. It was a charity-shop/thrifted bargain, originally from New Look. I was delighted to find this dress in the shhop, it is a great swing dancing dress. You can't resist a red dress! I added a vintage Aurora Borealis necklace, a heart-belt and these Shoe-zone shoes which are great for swing dancing- light fabric to avoid sweaty-feet, nice smooth heels and stay on your foot with the strap. My chief requirement for swing dance shoes.

How do you feel about going out to town on a Saturday evening? Or what do you do with your Saturday nights?

xx

Once insecure, always insecure?

On Saturday, CBC and I travelled to Watford for a day and night of Swing-dance courtesy of JiveSwing, our dance class, which is a big organisation of classes, ours being just one. It was a great day, we had some super classes- the day was held in honour of Frankie Manning's 100th birthday (if he was still alive)- the Father of bringing Swing dance back to the UK in the '80's.

We had two lindy-hop classes, learning a Frankie lindy-stroll and then a dips and tricks workshop. CBC decided he wanted to do some authentic jazz instead so I had to find another partner to dance with and managed to dance with a fun, young guy I met in the queue- it was hilarious as we learned to do these dips. I got the giggles as I had to spend a long time hugging him as we learnt a dip and then a move where I had to swing under his arm. I am suffering today though as my quads are really aching as the move involved rotating in a squat position!

In the evening, I wore the above outfit. I didn't take any photos-crazy for me! CBC just got this slightly blurry one of me- I wore the dress I picked up a while back, worn with my birthday petticoat and a wired headband- I really like these!

Anyway, in the evening, apart from many enjoyable dances together,  CBC was asked to dance lots by lots of ladies. I was asked to dance a few times by some guys although not as many and felt a wallflower at times. It's so silly but the pair of us are so insecure about asking people to dance just in case they think we are rubbish! Everyone else seems perfectly happy to ask other people to dance (it's the way your dancing improves). It's silly because I did spend a some time standing at the edge wishing someone would ask me to dance but like my teenage-self, in my stupid subconscious, didn't want anyone to think that I really wanted to dance, so I didn't get disappointed if they didn't dance.  I am an idiot- I am 33 and should just get on with it.  It's funny though, sometimes I feel much more confident.  Last night, I found myself thinking that the reason is because I always want to do something well and never want to be thought to be bad at something and I am not an expert at lindy and probably never will be, I just love it.

Yet, this morning, I played in my new church for the first time (9am rehearsal after getting to bed at 2am!!!!! I was KNACKERED!).  I KNOW that I am a a capable flautist and I know I play well and I know that when I am in the spirit at church, I will play and worship with my heart and soul. I know from 10 years of playing at my old church that my playing really helps people to worship.  And yet, I was worrying to myself that people would be judging me and didn't want people to say nice things to me just in case they were just being nice, not meaning it! Of all the ridiculous things to think!?!???!!?! Of course they're not, it's just my stupid mind.  Of course, once I started playing, I felt myself fill with the spirit and felt the insecurities fly away.

It's interesting that Stuart, a guy was being baptised today and he talked about how he had faced anxiety in his life and couldn't seem to snap out of it until he gave his life to God. And it struck me, when I feel most insecure and lacking confidence is when I stop praying, speaking to God and reading the Bible, when I've left tiredness and laziness get in the way, just let slip and then all my insecurities come back.  So today, I will reclaim my confidence and be strong in the knowledge that I do have talents that God has given me and I can do well and be strengthened by him in my prayers.  And there may be things that I am not talented at, but they are things I should enjoy because they are God-given and I've been given the freedom to enjoy these! Be the best that I can be but accept that I will not always be the best but I can have the most fun!

Linking to Visible Mondays with dear Patti

Party Frock

We went to a 50th Birthday celebration and I finally wore a dress I had bought a while back from Poppy England, a Grace tea dress.  The buying of this dress was totally down to the blogging as I had seen the red version advertised on Char's blog and had loved it and ummed and ahed for months.   I loved the fact it is made in England and not abroad and was a quintessential cotton, lined 50's frock that would be great for both lindy-hopping and a special occasion but wasn't sure about the cost.  It wasn't until a good 3 weeks after the red one had gone into the sale that I decided to buy one but the red had all gone- I checked with Hannah at Poppy and they searched and finally found a size 10 (a bit big to be honest) in the navy- you can wear it backwards with a v-neck as well but I'm not so keen.

Finally, I wore it with the new black tulle petticoat my sister had bought me for my birthday.  It was suitably swishy worn with Primark cardigan and George dalmation shoes (and Alex Munroe-style Bee necklace)



My sister came over to practice for my Grandad's funeral today- we're playing a piece together and then I am playing a piece by myself- she rehearsed her speech on me- I smiled lots at the memories, it felt very bittersweet remembering those events and times.  My niece had us in fits of laughter as we were rehearsing the flight of the bumblebee and she asked to play too and had a rainstick which she played meticulously in time, turning it every two bars on the downbeat.  That was good until she got the castanets and ocarina out and set up a faster pulse on them than we were playing which totally sped us up and threw us and we shook uncontrollably, trying to keep going but it's impossible to play the flute whilst laughing until we collapsed with laughter mid piece.

We then had tea and chocolate cake that CBC had made last week. My niece was definitely showing signs of cupboard love here: she was after that cake!




Linking to the lovely Patti at Visible Monday with my party dress! A petticoat, I find, always makes you feel visible- getting through doors is hard and people have to give you a wide berth!

A day out in the smoke

For my birthday outing to London on Saturday, I decided I wanted to wear a really fun, bright outfit! Wearing a big hat was a must as I have had a hat-free week, thus needed to get double the hat fun at the weekend!  This hat, I believe, has only ever featured once on this blog, a LONG time ago as part of my 'Let them eat hats' series back in the early days of doing outfit posts.  Yes, did you know that it was my sharing of my hats that first started the slippery slope into outfit posts (WOMOTM, this is where it began!). I do love a good floppy 70's style hat, they are just fun and very flattering!
The outfit consists of: Hat and skirt (last worn here): Primark- 7 years ago; grey rose jumper- Midinette, Florence; Earrings: gift, tights- Topshop; Shoes: Irregular Choice Mini magic woof.

Linking to Hat attack with the gorgeous Judith and Fashion Item Friday with the lovely Renae!


My birthday day was absolutely great fun (except for grumpy companion!)- we set off up to London at around 11am, stopping quickly via our local town to fetch a birthday parcel from the post office (thanks J and WOMOTM).  We then flew into town on the tain, changing at Bank o Monument (the longest walk ever!  You have to go up about  4-5 sets of stairs and about 8 long stretches of corridor!! Rather like a vintage Doctor Who episode, without the daleks chasing behind! (At least I don't think they were?)
We alighted at Embankment and headed across to the pier where Bateux dinner cruises operate.  We went aboard the Harmony and were seated at a table for two by the window.  The boat was spacious and was filled with adults of varying ages.  Almost immediately, the boat departed.  We ordered drinks and during the 1.5 hour boat trip, we were served with 3 delicious courses- salmon roulade with picked vegetables and bread to start, chicken encroute, mash and green beans for main

and vanilla pannacotta with raspberry jus and chocolate macaroon underneath.

The service was efficient and unobtrusive. As we ate, a voice-over told us the history of the buildings we were passing on the river Thames.  Can I say, this is an excellent way to see the amazingly different architecture of London and learn a bit more about it.  I have another post planned to share some of this, but I was really impressed and amazed by how diverse the London architecture is even though I have lived near it most of my life.
I will share more photos soon but I had to share this one as I took a series of shots of St Paul's cathedral and it does seem like it is photobombing all the other buildings' shots saying, "Hello, look at me I'm white, gold and shiny!"


Once the cruise finished, we headed up towards Trafalgar square (where I last wore this grey top bizarrely) and went into the National Portrait Gallery which was as wonderful as it was the last time I visited about 15 years ago.  I could stare at those paintings for hours. There was a truly astounding one of Kelly Holmes and it really did look like a photo! No photos, I'm afraid.  I do love the fact that the main museums are free in London now, great to be able to see these national treasures for freee!  I discovered that Michael Farraday was extremely handsome, I think I'd have had a crush as a girl!

After this, we headed into the National Cafe which has a wonderful art-deco vibe and enjoyed an excellent cup of tea in these heavy cast-iron tea-pots and CBC had some carrot cake.

This would also be a good place to enjoy afternoon tea (pictured above) though we didn't.

Reluctantly, we headed home and after consuming my body-weight in prawn crackers, got changed to go out swing dancing!!! I was SO happy to discover that Essex Wildlife Trust were putting on a charity swing dance in Silverend (where you can hear the true Essex accent apparently!) on the day of my birthday treats!

We saw some swing dancers were know from another class we go to sometimes so it was nice to know people and chatted to some new ladies who didn't know anyone or how to swing dance.  There was a taster beginners class beforehand that we joined in with.  CBC and I had lots of fun dancing together (he finally snapped out of the grump) and I had a few dances with a couple of other people though not loads. It was a great venue- big dance floor, surface not too slidy, not to grippy/tacky, great crowd, fun decorations- rainbow bunting and fairylights, cool DJs- Texas Tommy and Vintage Rob (who I danced with at the start!) and even better, we sneaked out for chips!

It's not the best photo, but I resurrected my Christmas day dress (from Lindy Lou's) and wore it with pearls and polka-dot headband.  I have to say that these wired material headbands are the way forward for swing dancing hair- it didn't get in my way all night! (FYI, if you want to see me doing some swing dance (warning, I am not a great dancer, but this was ok just click on my wedding link


All in all, it was a fabulous day which I very much enjoyed!!!

How are you all doing?

xx

Pas des bride and groom!

Hello there! I do hope you are well! This is just a quick post to say thank you for all your well wishes for our wedding. It was a lovely day and we had a great time! I thought I'd leave you for a couple of days, with our first dance! You can finally laugh at me doing Lindy-hop! (I had a stonking headache during this so it's a miracle I didn't fall over dizzily! And, no, I didn't drink!!! ;-) ) See you soon! With much love, Kezzie and CBC xxx

Swing when you're grinning!

Hello there!

Thank you to all you tempting people who tried to persuade me to buy the musical dress.  I shall, despite my yearning, resist, and hope that the dress will be there in some months when I don't have the anxiety of wedding budgets to deal with!

I have had the loveliest few days (despite being at school on two of them).

By the way, I should say a hello to my secret blog reader who I discovered on the train last week!!!! Hello!  It was really nice to see you and since we will be living in the same town, let's meet up sometime!

On Sunday, I organised a hen picnic!  I knew that I didn't want a stereotypical hen night/weekend for various reasons- a) don't really like club/bars unless they involve swing dancing and then that would be rude to just abandon my hens for the eevening so I can dance. b) too expensive!  c) not for everyone!

So, I thought a picnic would be a really nice cheap way that wouldn't hopefully put anyone out too much! Everyone was asked to just bring a dish to share.  No real organisation about it, so we could have ended up with 18 potato salads!

We met in the beautiful park in my local town, near the mansion and found a lovely shady tree.  Gradually, friends arrived and we formed a mosaic of blankets and put out our food on the various blankets




Over the afternoon, around 18 friends came.  Everyone seemed to bring more than just one dish and there was a whole host of leftovers!


I had to laugh at my friend M who bought along a cake stand with cucumber sandwiches done in the Ritz style and scones, jam and clotted cream! In fact, three lots of scones were brought along!

Fancy a scone?
As well as making chivey potato salad, a regular salad, pretzels and caramel bites, I attempted some baking and using the ancient Self-raising flour in the cupboard and other things I found, I made cheesy-hearts- a variation on the Cheesy Stars recipe I found in the Usbourne kids Christmas food cookery book!

Cheesy hearts

It was SUCH a lovely chilled afternoon, a great opportunity for me to catch up with friends and indeed, friends to catch up with friends.  It was great that some of my wedding guests could meet each other too and one lovely TA from school (who I am GUTTED can't come to the wedding because of her holiday) said it was the only opportunity she has had to really have a chat to one of my fellow teachers in about a year!   The weather was perfect-warm but not too much!


I also got presents which I totally wasn't expecting!  A pink sash, a veil and tiara, a lucky sixpence and a ring holder, flowers, scented candles and lotions! 

The only downside of the afternoon was when I tripped over my own trousers (HOW?!) and scraped my knee which is now scabby, even more so when I scratched it tonight at lindy and made it bleed! That's going to look nice in wedding photos!

Then on Monday night, CBC and I discovered a new lindy class in Southend-on-Sea.  It was an absolutely brilliant evening at the Kursaal centre on the seafront.  We ate fish and chips beforehand and danced from 8.30 till 10.45pm in a small class with a super teacher who taught us some fun Charleston variations which I felt I cracked!  The top picture is the setting of the Kursaal centre!

This afternoon was our school talent show and I accompanied a child singing 'Heal the world' who WON! Bless him, he did so well aged 7! 

Tonight, I headed off to London for my 9th week of lindy lessons on the trot.  Again, it was a positive, successful evening and I even got a 'good' from Simon, the dance teacher when he danced with me to demonstrate at one point!  I had a great evening and am feeling positive about only 2 days left at school!!!
And that's enough about me.  How about you?x