Wallflower

Today

On Saturday Paul and I did our duty and attended the annual dance of the Somerset Association of Amateur Winemakers. It was, as always, run on a shoestring, but we put on our glad rags, packed a little supper and some wine and trotted off.

This year, apart from the fact that we were doing our duty and supporting our friends, we had another reason for going: to practise our dancing. Yes! We've been having ballroom dancing lessons. Every week we go to a class in Yeovil with about 30 other couples and are learning to put together the waltz, cha-cha, foxtrot and jive.

So, even though the quality of the music was dubious, with the singer occasionally getting a note in tune, we actually did a waltz (twice) and foxtrot (once) for real! We managed not to look at our feet, could only do one step in the waltz and discovered that seasoned dancers, too, tend to cannon into one another when attempting to turn the corners in the foxtrot. Paul's look of intense concentration wasn't exactly romantic but I'm sure that'll pass.

In My Day

When I was about 13 I attended ballroom dancing classes on Saturday mornings in Croydon. I don't know whose idea it was but I went with a bunch of other girls from school. I've an idea that there were also boys attending, but I didn't know any of them and anyway, they never asked me to dance. So I usually partnered another girl and circled the room. We all shuffled about, equally badly. We learnt waltz, cha-cha, tango, quickstep. I remember the day when the male instructor took me for the quickstep. We had the floor to ourselves and he steered me along with a magnificent sweeping movement. I felt as though I'd sprouted wings - this was what it was about!

With all this, there was actually never an opportunity to put it into practice. Social occasions rarely involved dancing at all (since I wasn't a debutante!) and when they did, everyone just jiggled around like ungainly spiders. And anyway, no-one ever asked me to dance.

I'm looking forward to our weekend at Burgh Island in June where there will be real dancing. This time, not only will we be able to do it, I won't be a wallflower.