A very memorable week

Following on from Tuesday when we had such a wonderful day at Birkhall and then in the Fife, the week ended on a high too. On Friday night we went to The Lonach Ball. It was the closest to a proper ball we have been to since returning from overseas and the fantastic balls in the Al Bustan Palace in Muscat and the Borobodour in Jakarta. The hall was rustic yet splendid and nicely decorated, the tables, all 25 x10 were tastefully dressed, as were the participants...all kilts and black tie and formal dresses. The meal was excellent, 4 courses, all hot and delicious. Short speeches and presentations, then some piping and a dance band. The programme was simple, mainly ceilidh with no less than 4 Gay Gordons!!!. The ball was due to finish at 2 am with a bowl of soup but we left just after the tea and sandwiches at 12 midnight as we had an early breakfast for guests the next morning.
Saturday and Sunday we were off to Pitlochry for the Performance Masterclass at the Festival Theatre. We both had a blast and can't wait to go again next year. The first day started with a singing class led my two professional performers, George Rae and Shirley Darroch. We learned so much about different singing techniques, and started work on At the End of the Day, from Les Miserable, my all time favourite musical theatre. What fun. Then we were on to a class in accents with Carol Ann, who was absolutely amazing and could switch effortlessly from one accent to another. We got to read bits of Death of a Salesman and had to try New York accents. Great fun, and a skill worth pursuing. The afternoon class was on moving and observing, again aided by real professional actors and actresses - Gary and Helen Logan. On the second day we perfected our singing piece and staged it....we will be seeing the video at some point. We worked on scripts and how to treat them, did some improvisation, and play reading, and learned how to stage fights. So much in two days....fantastic. I met several nice people and one called Trixie is going to keep me informed about other residential acting classes out there. I just loved the whole weekend and am now going to get tickets for Whisky Galore and the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie if I can. Can't wait to see all these teachers in their professional roles on stage.

Dancing in the Fife

What a night! A fitting end to a great day. We turned up for our usual stint at the Fife - 15 dancers instead of the normal 8 and we did the whole of the Birkhall programme again, including Kaleidoscope which went down extremely well. Most of the audience were native carribean....but now from London. Not only that we collected £185 which is the second highest ever, the record being £202.

Dancing at Birkhall

We had the most fantastic morning at Birkhall. The sun was shining, we all looked great and everything went like clockwork. For once my ankles seemd in good shape....mind over matter, maybe? I did take a painkiller but still they were better than they have been in weeks. The dancing went well, no mistakes, everybody smiled, including our Royal audience. We loved doing the Kaleidoscope and I can't wait to have it filmed from above. All the guests joined in the final dance - The Big Six-O. We gave Princess Alexandra a cheque for £500 for guide dogs for the blind...she was delighted. We gave Prince Charles £1000 for Erskine Hospital and a beautiful sword that Michel made...he was delighted, and I gave Camilla one of our corsages and invited her to be an honorary member of the Castleton Dancers. I told her practice night is Wednesday! She laughed and put on the corsage and said I'll be there. They also asked if we could teach the staff some new dances for the Gillies Ball in October and also said we would be getting 4 tickets every year.

Getting Started

It's 5 minutes after midnight on Friday 21st August 2009 and Mr Magrahi arrived home in Libya a few hours ago. Today is the first day of the rest of my life and the first day of my blog. I am celebrating that I have retired from education after 40 years...and 3 of these years were served in Libya. It will be interesting for me to see if I can keep up this blog, having tried unsuccessfully in the past to keep a diary.
This has been an interesting and varied summer so far, busy in the B&B, and wonderful visits from family and friends but the summer is drawing to a close and it is time to decide how I will spend the rest of my life. Will it be a case of strings of days filled with nothing more than housework, cooking, reading and of course blogging? Or will I find some other purposes? Will I find another job? Will I finally write my bestseller? Or even just my life story for my children? Will I knit countless jumpers? Will I become a better gardener? Who knows but it will be interesting seeing what develops.
Two things are certain though. We, Richard and I, will do more travelling here and abroad. Visits to friends and family who live in other parts of the UK. Visits to Debbie and Claire and their families in USA and Norway. And travel for the sake of travel to see new places and to revisit places where we have lived before. And secondly as long as my feet will stand it (excuse the pun) I will keep on dancing. The Castleton Dancers are going from strength to strength and gaining appreciation here in Braemar. The £21,000 that we have so far raised for good causes is quite phenomenal and we are very proud. Working together over the last few weeks to bring together a performance containing 3 original compositions for Prince Charles and Camilla next week has been very rewarding. Let's hope we have many more opportunities ahead.