Ballet night

I did it.

I danced on stage.

In public.

Ballet.

And it was fun!

Tomorrow we do it all again -

the dressing, the make up,

the hanging around,

the waiting in the wings,

heat coming off the stage lights,

the kneeling on stage, 

head down in position,

the dance, over in a flash -

and then it's all over.

A year of training,

 and six months of rehearsing

for 3 minutes on stage, times two.

Was it perfect?

No.

But for three adults

who either haven't danced for years (the rest)

or haven't danced before (me)

it wasn't half bad!

(But who would have thought it, 

two years ago???)

Wednesday on my own

 Laura is back at school today,

after a couple of days off with a bad headache.

Free to leave home once more,

I raced to the shops this morning

to buy some much-needed groceries.

Dealing with multiple diets is adding up.

High grocery bills and lots of foods 

to fit into the pantry and fridge.

And then I raced home, threw on my dance clothes

and rushed to ballet.

Where I was presented with a dress.

Looks like we really will be dancing 

in the end-of-year concert!

Yikes!

(except we will be removing those blue sequins,

in case you're interested ..)

And a tutu too

First day en pointe

Laura has recently achieved a long-held dream

and gone en pointe,

spending much time at home in her pointe shoes

She bought herself a practice tutu on ebay

and it arrived in the holidays,

adding her to ballet-related happiness.

Here she tries the little-known and under-utilised

 ironing en pointe routine.

I guess that's one way of getting her 

to do her chores ...

* * *

And since we three girls are now 

all studying ballet

perhaps we could all frock up

and glissade, jete and pas de chat

our way through the housework?

(Of course, I'd have to pick up my ballet

game a bit to manage that ...

and the girls would have to pick up 

their housework game ...)

Too much chocolate

Speaking of ballet ....

Look what we won at Laura's ballet concert:

A massive basket of Lindt chocolate!

Weighing in at 3.8kg 

(including the basket).

There is a serious amount of chocolate here

in all sorts of beautiful packaging

and flavours.

Just a shame I can't eat any of it ....

(but I can't complain really, 

last year in the same raffle

we won a bottle of scotch,

and whisky is something I can indulge in.

Pretty good for a family that "never" goes in raffles.

I think next year we will have to 

stay out of the ballet raffle!

Which is more than I will be able to say 

about the concert itself

Card I made for out ballet teacher

- if our ballet teacher has her way 

I will be up on stage for the first time in my life

pas de chat -ing and jete-ing

like an uncoordinated elephant.)

Night at the Ballet

On Wednesday Laura and I had a wonderful night at the ballet.

Stephen Bayne's

Swan Lake

performed by the Australian Ballet.

Something we had planned months ago.

Timed to come after the rush of end-of-year events,

ballet concerts etc.

And inspiration for we two ballet dancers.

Lately the days have been dark and cloudy

or brilliant sunshine

and we were fortunate to have 

an evening of sunshine.

As we arrived at Circular Quay a ship was leaving

People were watching, and partying.

A brilliant atmosphere.

We soaked it up for a while

and then headed to the Opera House.

Seeing the last of the ship 

over the other side of the point.

It was our first time at the ballet,

fun to dress up for a night out.

There were quite a few girls around Laura's age 

also wearing beautiful dresses.

(And who knew that canapes would be served?)

Picture: David Geraghty Source: The Australian

And then the ballet itself.

Spectacular.

Tchaikowsky's music,

incredible violin solos,

clever choreography.

gorgeous costumes

and precision I never dreamed of

(how do they do it??)

Definitely a night to remember.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Top o' the mornin' to you!

We have a lovely morning here, cool but sunny, but it will be warmer later in the day.
This photo was taken in December at our last Irish Concert. Laura will dance on Saturday at an informal St Patrick's Day concert in someone's home, and will probably get to wear the same lovely dress again. Unfortunately Emily has given up Irish Dancing for the time being, but she is feeling quite busy enough with band, choir and high school homework.

Irish Dancing Concert

As if we didn't have enough on in December already, we spent yesterday morning at the girls' Irish Dancing Christmas Concert! Actually it was a lovely concert and the girls danced about 3 times and it was lovely to see performers aged from about 4-50 on stage dancing.

Laura got to wear this lovely dress, loaned by the teacher. It's the first time she's worn a proper dress, in the past she's worn this style of dress. She looked lovely yesterday. Emily was all photo-ed out from her Year 6 dinner, so avoided the camera. Each girl received a trophy for her participation this year, the trophies this time were extra-special!

An Irish Feis

Today we left home at 8.15am, drove south for over an hour, the girls danced in an Irish Feis (and won trophies! Emily got a 3rd place this time!) then drove half an hour north east and had lunch with my sister, then drove another half an hour north and the girls played in a band competition (where their band was awarded gold!), then finally we drove another hour north and arrived home around 6.00pm.

Not our favourite way to spend a Sunday, but a lovely warm day, wonderful performances from our talented girls, a safe trip and a quick catch-up with my sister's family, and a yummy lunch. An early night tonight will prepare us for the more normal week ahead. Life has been much too busy lately!

St Patricks Day Fun

On the weekend I wrote about our plans for today, St Patricks Day. Having not done anything quite like this before, I was a little anxious about how it might go - several factors were against us. But it turned out to be a perfect day!

Alas, the hard shoes did not arrive on time, but last night we got the hair curled, product applied and all (yes, at last I know how to do curlers properly - better late than never), then this morning we caught the train and travelled to the Recital Hall without too many dramas. In fact, we were there first, long before anyone else. We chatted with the stage manager and one of the pianists briefly before being taken to our dressing room. Which was a "real" dressing room, so lots of fun (Laura even acted for a silly video before anyone else turned up).


Later the others arrived, we got the dresses on, lipstick applied etc and went to the stage door for a rehearsal. And, wouldn't you know it, the stage managers decided that we couldn't use hard shoes much after all, to save the soft stage floor! So Emily didn't need hard shoes, as it turned out! The girls had to dance their hard shoe dances in soft shoes, thumping their feet down as loudly as they could!

I stayed backstage with the teachers and got to see a lot of dancing (without the expense of a ticket!) Here is a peep of my girls onstage:

There were 1050 people in the audience, and all the girls danced brilliantly. My girls have only been dancing for two years, and were the most inexperienced of the group today, but they did well. (I heard afterwards that in the second concert Laura sneezed during her dance - but kept dancing!)

After the first concert we took off the hot heavy costumes and the girls changed and we went and had lunch in Martin Place. It was a perfect autumn day - sunshine and cool breezes.

An obliging man with blue hair presented the girls and their friend with balloons to play with

... and then one of the readers of this blog walked by! A lovely surprise - Hi Linda! She knew exactly what we were doing there! It's strange to have virtual and real life combine!


We went for a quick walk to a few shops and then returned for the second concert - another success!

Then we took photos of the group in the foyer (other faces blurred for privacy) and headed home. On the doorstep at home were a few parcels - the hard shoes had arrived (!), and the new Stampin' Up! catalogue (yey!)

I was exhausted but the girls bounced on ... some more Irish dancing in the hallway and then they offered to cook dessert! Woohoo! I sat with my feet up and a heatpack (poring over the new catalogue) and they baked a delicious apple crumble. Yes, a great day was had by all.

St Patrick's Day

Happy St Patrick's Day!

I have never celebrated St Patrick's Day in my life - it's not a big thing in Australia, but this year my girls are dancing in a big Seniors Concert in the city, and I thought it would be fun to give their Irish Dancing teacher a St Patrick's Day card. So we made this for her.

Am hoping the day will go okay - first the night before we need to curl the hair, then leave home early to travel by train and then walk (carrying two heavy costumes), then put on makeup, fix the hair, calm the nerves and then ... hopefully ... the girls can dance calmly onto the stage. They have never performed in front of such a large audience. But we have told them that they will all be elderly people, and even if they made a mistake the audience will love them - they just love to see little girls dancing and looking cute on stage!

Before that we are REALLY hoping that the hard (tap) shoes we ordered 10 days ago on ebay will actually show up tomorrow in time for the concert on Tuesday. If not, poor Emily will have to dance in her school shoes! Not happy Jan.

So think of us, on Tuesday! I'll let you know how it goes!

Irish Dancing Competition

Yeah, I was right. The dress does look better on a girl than on a hanger!

We survived the all-day outing yesterday of church (plus band rehearsal first) then a long drive, a long competition, then a long drive home.

(Laura in the yellow dress Emily wore last year)

The girls danced very well, but were up against girls their age who have been dancing for much longer, so were not placed high this time (last year they won 1st and 2nd places in the beginners)

But we were so proud of them, they danced so well and in hard shoes, too, which they have only learnt recently.

Beautiful girl!

Here are all the girls in the 7-10 years sections, as you can see the dresses are pretty spectacular. Some of them a bit too spectacular for my liking! One of the older girls (not in the photo) was dressed in pink, with a blonde wig with a pink rosy headband. As she stood on the stage posed ready to dance, I whispered to Steve she looked like something to put on top of a cake! Until she started to dance, then she was amazing!

Irish Colour

Tomorrow the girls are competing in a Irish Dancing Competition. We were fortunate to be loaned a dress for Emily by the teacher (Laura now fits into Emily's old dress). This dress has been worn by many students, but is still stunning.

I can see now why Irish dresses are so expensive. Most of the colours on this dress are solid satin stitch, although some sections are appliqued on. Sequins and rhinestones are also used.


Front view:

Back view:

This dress is so heavy. I hope Emily can actually dance in it! Thank goodness the weather has cooled down, November is not really the season in Australia for wearing a heavy velvet dress.
Hopefully after tomorrow I can post some photos of her actually IN the dress!

Spring has Sprung

Spring has sprung

The grass is riz,

I wonder where the birdies is?

After a very dark miserable day here yesterday, check out our sky for the first day of Spring!

Our magnolia is a strange mixture of mostly bare branches, but a few branches of leaves and flowers. For the last few seasons this tree has been very confused. Not knowing when to bloom and when not to. I think the visiting birds may have something to do with it.

An eriostemon bush

Daisies by the front gate

Wallflowers

and a daughter rushing off to band practice before Multicultural Day at school ... there's some Irish blood in us way back! This is one of our dresses for Irish Dancing.

Shortly after that photo I had to rush off to the local supermarket as I had completely forgotten to get some multicultural food ready. Luckily a plate of bought Scottish shortbread reflects our Scottish heritage too!

My spring fever will be over soon, as will our flowers, so I am making the most of them now!

Jigs and Jumping Castles

Today was a full day. First an Irish Dancing Mini Feis (competition) and Concert to finish off our first year in the world of Irish Dancing. The girls danced well, but other girls danced better. However we still came away with a generous supply of trophies and medals!

We dashed out of there as lunch was beginning to go to Steve's company Christmas party, in the grounds of a beautiful private school by the river. A delicious lunch, followed by a very tedious wait for presents for Santa (the girls sat patiently for almost an hour!!!) Emily received a gemstone-decorated diary, and Laura a fluffy pink radio! Then they ran off to jumping castles and we all enjoyed fairy floss, popcorn and snow cones. In the humidity the fairy floss dripped sugar icicles onto my skirt. A good afternoon, but a tiring day.

When we arrived home I worked to get the house back to some semblance of tidiness, in the hope that in the morning I might feel a bit more relaxed about all that needs to be done in the next weeks! I cleared off my craft desk, so hopefully I might get to break out that star-shaped cuttlebug die tomorrow. Maybe?

Speaking of the Cuttlebug, the card above uses the beautiful swirls embossing folder.