First update: Wednesday and Sunday's dancing lessons

On Wednesday I had a dancing lesson, as usual. I got singled out for a few pointers on technique. One - when waltzing, it's swoop rise rise, and which foot does which lowering / rising action is pretty straightforward to remember, except for my feet. Two - when jiving, keep -

Actually, that bit was painfully funny. He had myself and my dancing partner put our arms around each other's necks (I'm 5' tall; my dancing partner is 6' tall). Then he had us stand with one foot sloght behind the other, and transfer the weight from foot to foot by bending our knees. "I'm not meant to wiggle!" I cried in despair. "You were born to wiggle," the teacher assured me, firmly moving my knees and hips to where they oughta be. How he hasn't thrown me out for excessive frivolity in the face of dancing lessons I will never know. Anyway, the point of the exercise was to keep my center of gravity over my feet while moving my body in a suitably free-and-easy way for jive.

The Sunday lesson was odd; it was later in the day than it usually is, and a bunch of people who have recently been off competing were there. We did a lot of swoop-rise-rise in the waltz, and I learned that the swoop is a hell of a lot lower than it feels like it ought to be. In fact, the first time we got it right, it felt so like a lunge or a squat that I creased up again. At least I have a healthy sense of the ridiculous, even if no-one else could see what I found so funny. I also have to take bigger steps backwards; I keep treading on my gown when I do, though, so I need to work on this whole glide thing. I refuse point blank to wear heels. I will continue to refuse as long as possible. I refuse to believe that they are necessary, and thankfully no-one has tried to talk me in to them yet.

It was a hard lesson; it was very hot, to start with, and I was tired, and I worked hard (between hysterical giggling fits). I left it with many many bad-person feelings, so I went for ice-cream.

Second update: Saturday's wedding planning

On Saturday, early afternoon, Rob's parents arrived to do Wedding Things. His mother translated the Swedish song into English, so that I can ask the Registrar to approve it as part of the ceremony. Then we ate a picnic lunch and headed out to the Town Hall to meet the caterer.

That went well; the caterer knows his onions, and has organised far more weddings than I have, and was very helpful indeed. We arranged where we will take the photographs, and the few points of contention that I knew were going to come up did, in fact, come up, and were resolved - not very graciously on my part, but there are communication-style reasons for that which I may go into later. First, we didn't want to do a cutting-the-cake bit, but other people want us to, so we will, and secondly, we have vetoed hand-held camcorders at the event, very sorry but I hate them with a passion unmatched by any other up to and including my dislike of gift lists. So I was implacable on one point and gave in on the other.

After that we went via the hotel and Rob's mother talked to them about the arrangements, and then we all came home and had tea.

There was a brief moment that could have been nasty when I was looking at my hard-earned seating plan, over which I furrowed my brow and sweated blood, etc, and she said that it'd be nice to sit some of Rob's paternal relations with some of Rob's maternal relations so that they could meet. I snapped back "As far as I'm concerned, they should have met at your wedding; I want them to meet my family now." Thankfully Rob's father stepped in at that point to remind people that the meal is only part of the whole thing and people can mingle afterwards too.

I know it's her son's wedding too, and I know that he's the first of her two children to get married, and that's very exciting. But sometimes I wish that weddings were still hosted by the bride's family, rather than by the couple themselves, and I had a good excuse to ignore everyone else. (No, I don't really wish that, any more than three year olds really wish they were dead. When you hold your breath until something happens, what happens is that you start breathing again).

Very commendably, neither one of Rob's parents remarked on the fact that I'm still smoking; that used to be a constant bugbear (Smoking's bad for me? I should give up? Wow! I never knew that!) for a while. I really appreciated that.

Third update: Sunday's shopping and socialising

On Sunday morning I went to town with Janice to buy swimming togs. We found one pair of togs in Reading that was a decent shape and a bearable colour. There's something wrong with style in the shops right now.

Then I went to my lesson, and then we went to Darrell and Becky's new house for a barbeque. It's nice and big inside, much bigger than our house, and the garden is lovely. It should take them a good long time to fill all the space with stuff! and even longer to find all the garden ornaments left by the previous owners, tucked away under fronds and so on. The garden is in three sections, so that you can sit in one section and not really see and be seen in the other sections. At the bottom of the garden is the river, which may be swimmable in. And there's a good big sycamore that's perfect for building a tree-house in.

Fourth update: this morning

Woke clogged up from nose to forehead and down to the pits of my lungs. Did the washing up, tidied the kitchen a little, and read Livejournal. Wrote three updates. Oh, dressed and so on, as well. Ate breakfast (yoghurt, hurrha hurrah).