June-July Favourites

A Week in Devon

 

My SO and I had a much needed week away in South Devon at the end of June. Although rain was forecast for the ENTIRE WEEK, we had sunshine all week, apart from one evening and one overnight downpour! We got to enjoy lots of seafood, beautiful gardens, a couple of short boat trips, and we even had a cheeky trip to the theatre on the evening it rained to see Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest! To be honest, I could have just stayed in Devon and had our belongings shipped down, but I missed my cat too much!

Anything Goes

 

Last Saturday afternoon, my SO and I went to the Barbican Centre in the City of London to see the fabulous Tony Award winning musical Anything Goes!

The current London run is starring big name actors Bonnie Langford (Cats, 42nd Street, Eastenders), Simon Callow (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love), and Denis Lawson (Bleak House, Star Wars, New Tricks), along with award-winning West End star Kerry Ellis (Cats, Wicked, We Will Rock You).

With a fantastic Cole Porter score of many songs you’ve probably heard of, including ‘It’s De-lovely’, ‘I get a Kick out of You’, ‘You’re the Top’ aaaand ‘Anything Goes’ of course, the ocean liner-based farce was absolutely hilarious. The dance numbers were great and even included tap dancing sailors! It was just such an engaging, uplifting and fun afternoon at the theatre.

Dance & Fitness

Sleek Ballet

I’m currently taking a break from weekly tap classes, which is giving me a bit of space to work through some of my video collection on timesteps, technique and classic repertoire – I managed to get down to the garage last Thursday evening, but now we’re in the middle of a heatwave (they’re saying it’s going to be 40 degrees Celsius on Monday – not fun jumping up and down in a stuffy garage!) so I’ve not done much so far. However, I will be attending 2 days of a 3-day tap dance intensive in Covent Garden later this month – I’ve been twice before and I always come away having learnt LOADS. I just need to pace myself, because on the previous occasions I went I felt BATTERED the next day. (Better hydration? More snacks? More breaks? Electrolytes?)

I wasn’t going to continue with the Sleek Ballet membership after the trial, but they enticed me back with a discount, so I cancelled my Rambert Home Studio membership for now and I’m giving it a go! (If you look right now, they’re offering 50% off your first year with code Summer50). So far I’ve done a couple of Lower Body Barre videos and No Jump Cardio – I’m definitely feeling the burn! I also try to continue doing the BOP Jazz workouts after work and I do a daily series of stretches most evenings. I now have access to a really good collection of exercise videos – I just need to get into some sort of routine.

Keep dancing, hydrating and working out!

 

 

 

A Holiday, A Decision & A Festival

Holiday

I can’t believe it’s July already! My SO and I recently had a week’s holiday in Torbay, aka the English Riviera, which basically consists of the seaside towns of Torquay (as in Fawlty Towers), Paignton and the beautiful fishing harbour of Brixham. We had such a great time, and we were really spoiled with the lovely weather (because everyone back home had rain a lot of that week). The week ended up having an Agatha Christie theme because we visited her holiday home Greenway, by the stunning River Dart, we saw an Agatha Christie exhibition at Torquay Museum and some of the set and costumes from ITV’s Poirot (one of my favourite shows ever – although only series 1-8. Not so bothered after it changed production and we lost the comedic relationships between Poirot and Inspector Japp, Hastings and Miss Lemon), we saw her comedy-thriller play Spider’s Web at Paignton Theatre one evening, and while visiting her hometown of Torquay, we also found the site of her childhood home, which is sadly no more. What a week!

Big Decision

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

After thinking about it for quite a while, today I closed my soap business that I’ve been running for about 10 years. Although I had been thinking about doing it for a while, Brexit ended up being the catalyst as I had to jump through a number of hoops to submit all my product details to the new government cosmetics portal, and I just knew I was over it already. Although I feel a little sad about it, I also feel like a BIG WEIGHT has been lifted off my shoulders. About 5 years after starting my craft business I got into tap dancing which requires time and dedication, plus I didn’t have much time for writing for fun anymore, so it feels good to have that extra time back! I have a small-scale wholesale customer who I will continue to make for once a month, but I’m just done with all the other stuff.

Tap City

American Tap Dance Foundation’s TAP CITY festival starts on Monday!!! I’m really excited to be able to join in while it’s taking place online. I mean, who’s getting on a flight from London to New York at the moment?? I’ve printed off the schedule, highlighted all the intermediate classes, and added in the class times in GMT (big thanks to my SO for reminding me about that!). I will actually be working Monday and Tuesday (still working from home, so I can join in from 5pm) and then I am on holiday the rest of the week so I can take part live, but my registration actually includes 30 days access to the recordings. Result!

On another note, I am currently working on a mini-bio about a female tap dance legend to share with you shortly. I did start doing research while I was in Devon, but I was too distracted by the sea views!

Round of Applause

 

Vests
Last week’s tap & gym outfits

Tap class is going really well at the moment. We’re doing a fantastic percussive routine to the song SOB by Nathaniel Ratcliffe and the Night Sweats, which includes lots of steps and lots of clapping. The thing with tapping and clapping, it’s a bit like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time…and sometimes we’re stepping on the beat and clapping on the off-beat. It’s amazing, I LOVE IT. It takes a lot of practice to get it right, and I am making sure I do that when I’m at home (and sometimes at work during a break), otherwise I think I’d be struggling every week with the speed of it.

We only have this week and next left of the term, and then we head into the summer break…but not before the ‘Summer Shorts’ workshops! I’ve enrolled on the Tap Improvisation workshop, but this year I’ll be giving the Shim Sham workshop a miss because I have a church BBQ. Then, in the last week of July I will be attending the 3 day Intermediate Tap Intensive at CityLit, along with a couple of my classmates! I can’t wait, but I’m going to make sure I pace myself this time.

In need of a break last weekend after doing lots of summer fairs and things, my SO and I headed to the south coast for a long weekend on the beach. It was so warm and Mediterranean-feeling, that we could have shut our eyes and thought we were in Spain. The beach was looovely, a little shingly, but once we got over that bit and into the (chilly) sea (took me a while!), we found sand!

Beach
Sand…it’s in there somewhere

On a final note, I thought it was high time for a dance show, so next week I’m going to my local theatre to see an Irish dance show called Rhythm of the Dance. I’ll tell you all about it next week!

Summer Holiday

Last week my SO and I had a nice week away in North Devon. I love visiting the south-west, and have been to Cornwall many times, but it had been a while since we’d been to Devon, so we decided to stay in the surf capital, Croyde Bay.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite warm enough to go swimming, surfing or body-boarding, although many people did! But we got out and about and visited Exmoor Zoo, Lynton and Lynmouth, home of the Cliff Railway, the Victorian seaside town of Ilfracombe, Dartington Crystal to watch glassblowing in action, Westward Ho! for a savoury cream tea (onion chutney and cream cheese instead of jam and clotted cream), and Arlington Court National Trust house and carriage museum.

I did take my Tae Bo and Sleek Ballet dvds with the intention of working out every morning… but it never happened! At least we did a lot of hill walking 🙂

Although we had the rental bungalow until Saturday morning, we decided after dinner on Friday evening to pack up and do the 4 hour drive there and then rather than get caught in crazy motorway queues on Saturday. 👍 👍

Did you get away this Summer, or did you have a staycation? Or did you have to work? (Boo!)