A week of firsts

It’s been a busy old week.  I’ve had a big implementation this week; well it was supposed to Go Live last week, but what with wasting 3 weeks trying to working out what I was supposed to be delivering, having a key member of staff (essentially the only resource I had) announce they were leaving the company just as the project came on line, having to do meetings and specs that I shouldn’t have been doing etc, the week’s contingency I had built in to the already impossibly tight but non-negotiable timeline kind of evaporated …  Anyway, Go Live happened 3 days late but was very enjoyable in a twisted way!  It was almost like running an event again – me in the middle being mission control with a group of people who very quickly metamorphosed into a real team in a way that I’m not sure has happened before.  (Maybe that’s just me being big headed!)  We’re going to need a serious de-brief on the project – lots of lessons to be learned and all that, but I feel that we’ve got a good team and we’re in a good position to build on it for the next disastrous project already on the horizon.  One more difficult and haphazard project to go and then after that all the projects will have been mine from the start so there are lots of new procedures and working practices to put in place and existing processes to get used etc.

This week also saw my first Salsa class.  I’ve been banging on about this for months and I finally got round to it this week.  It was quite funny really.  I was immediately transported back to school when in the 6th form we were forced to have ballroom dancing lessons with the boys from the grammar school.  The girls would line up along one side of the school hall, boys down the other and Mrs Isaac and Mr Blah (can’t remember his name – he was very light on his feet but had terrible bad breath!) would demonstrate the waltz, foxtrot, cha cha, polka or whatever and then we’d have to have a go.  It all felt fairly disastrous at the time – thoroughly embarrassing and all that – but if it came to it I could probably still manage to fluff my way through a waltz or a foxtrot with a guy that knew what he was doing.

OK, so the Salsa class was full of adults and not spotty teenagers and everyone was there by choice but there were still many sweaty palms and a bunch of beginners desperately staring at their feet like they would up and run off if they weren’t kept in sight at all times, and heaven forbid that you should make eye contact with your partner!

The teacher of the beginners’ group was a nice enough woman, very encouraging and all that but she began by counting 123567123567 right from the beginning with no explanation of why. What happened to 4 and 8?  Well I know what happened to them – being a musician obviously helps – but for me the whole 123..567.. thing isn’t really something I think about; if you’re musical and feel the beat, you know which beat you’re on without counting.  However I’m  not sure everyone else in the beginners class realised where 4 and 8 were … It was about 25 minutes in before the teacher explained that you rest on 4 and 8, so it wasn’t until after then that a couple of the blokes who were having trouble with the concept that the “next foot” you use has to be the one that you’re not currently standing on otherwise you fall over, cottoned on that they didn’t just go from 3 to 5 and 7 back to 1.  Happily after this realisation there was much less treading on toes!

I guess the problem is that I’m not quite a beginner, but I’m also not good enough to be in with the intermediates.  However, I know that I must do my scales and arpeggios in order to be able to play the cool stuff I want to …  Sorry, I mean I must practice my mambo, rumba, turn, open out and crossover steps before I can do the fun looking stuff.  I also must remember that I must not lead … ;-)

I’ll go back I reckon, but it would be nice to have someone to go with as everyone else there was with someone they knew.  However, TH categorically doesn’t do dancing, so if I want to do it, it’ll have to be on my own.  I’ve started so I’ll finish!

Friday saw Kenny Young and the Eggplants via a swift one in the HITW.  I’ve been trying to get to see them for years and this was the first year I managed not to be working, hurrah!  TH came too and it was great fun (apart from a really ropey white wine and soda, apparently BB asked for a single malt and was given a Bells!)  They did all my favourites, Eddie’s Apartment, Rambo goes Shopping and Earl the Squirrel and I got a lovely complimentary eggplant badger (sorry badge!) and an eggplant T shirt into the bargain.  A girl can never have too many band t shirts to wear as nighties!  

The menu
Dinner (Sat): Organic chicken breast in a mushroom and stilton cream sauce with steamed organic carrots, broccoli and peas; followed by Belgian Chocolate ice cream laced with a wee bit of Muscat …