Sunday 30 August 2015

Tiaras and Tutus

What a week! London Amateur Ballet has to be one of my favourite things ever.

I have just spent six days living the life of a ballerina. Arriving at the studio around 9:30am, warm-up class (Pilates or floor barre) from 10am and full ballet class at 11am.



That in itself would be wonderful, but it was followed by three hours of learning and rehearsing choreography with fabulous teachers and amazing friends. The ballet of choice this time was La Bayadere. I haven't seen the ballet (apart from a few snippets on YouTube during the week), but certain sections of music and choreo will be stuck in my head for a very long time!



The other great thing about LAB is meeting other people who are as crazy as you. In the normal world it seems odd to say that you enjoy ballet dancing, but here I was surrounded by lovely people who feel the same. A huge mix of backgrounds, careers, etc but all with a common love of dance.

I did struggle a bit, even though I was three months post-surgery. It turns out that scar tissue isn't very stretchy so I pulled it a bit too much. The result was me taking a "rest day" where I did very little dancing. I also chose to learn one less piece of rep than everyone else. As a result I was still able to dance and enjoy myself and perform on the Saturday.


I am totally floating on a ballet high right now. I hope it doesn't wear off too quickly!

Monday 17 August 2015

Emerald Isle

Five days in Dublin and the Wicklow mountains were lovely and refreshing...

"Breakfast" at the airport...

Log cabin in the woods...

Strolling along the beach at Bray...

Visiting Powerscourt waterfall (largest waterfall in Ireland)...

Climbing on the rocks...

The boys had their motorbikes...


Add to that a sunny walk along the coast, a rainy day spent in a spa and lots of great food with good friends and you get a great little holiday!

I would thoroughly recommend Ireland as a holiday destination. The people were all very friendly and it is a beautiful place. I could have easily spent a week or two more exploring.

Tuesday 11 August 2015

Back in the pool

I'm a bit behind on blogging. There's been a holiday and a flying trip that I am yet to write about. But today is just a quick one...

It's been a while since my surgery now and so this morning I headed to the swimming pool for my first proper swim in two months. My general loss of fitness has been quite bad so I knew not to expect the 2km I was managing back in May! I went in with no expectations and did a respectable 700m. I mixed up the strokes, but was very pleased that my front crawl is still in fairly decent shape. Until I started my swimming training back in March I hadn't done much front crawl at all and now it is almost my default stroke. Success!

Here's some other stuff I've been up to recently: