Season's Greetings

I've had a great end to the term.

My weekend in Orkney was lovely. I met some great ladies and we had a lovely workshop. Laura, Ruth and I also had a great weekend, despite some truly terrible weather and a rather noisy night.

Ruth and I at Kirkwall Airport

Laura and Ruth outside St Magnus's Cathedral. Sorry it's sideways.

The final week of classes were focussed on fun! We did some bellydance style ceilidh dancing and had a festive playlist, with customary trips to the pub after each of the Dancebase classes. At Fisherrow there was the usual party night with drinks and nibbles. Some of the Helwa Hurdies shared the choreographies they'd been working on this term, which were very good and lovely to watch - well done and thank you Cheryl, Carol and Margaret!

The final gig of the term was the Dancebase Christmas Show on Sunday 4th December at The Queen's Hall. A big professional venue with a ticket-buying audience of non-bellydancers, and a big, slick, show featuring Dancebase's classes. The Bellydance Improvers were performing, and a group of 7 of us took to the stage for veils, sticks and a drum solo. It was a great afternoon and marvellous to get to dance with these ladies - my first time performing with them.
 

So that's the end of the dancing term. I'm looking forward to getting my Christmas cards written and having five - yes, five, wow! - weeks off! before the spring term. During which, I will, of course, be working on my playlist for the new term, seeking out new students and working on improving my dancing!! I'm also coming up to a bit of a crossroads in my life - my youngest child is starting school in 2012, so I am weighing up my working/retraining/"proper job" options. So this holiday will be time for a bit of research and heaving duty thinking.

I am sad to say that Dancebase's bellydance class at the Thomas Morton Halls in my home turf of Leith will not be running next term. Dancebase are scaling back their classes in Leith to just two evenings plus Saturday mornings. I'm really sad that this is happening - not least because I've really enjoyed teaching there, and have had a lovely group of ladies dancing in that great venue. But also because it would be great to see Leith dancing more. I would have loved to have seen all the Leith schools and community groups getting the chance to dance in the Thomas Morton Halls, or classes from the Halls getting involved in the local community. Sadly it's not to be, which is very disappointing.

Have a lovely festive season!