Invisible

On Monday it was my husband's birthday. I had intended to buy him and me a dancing lesson, but Izobela was away last week and rather inefficiently I hadn't got round to booking one with her before she went.

My husband like a lot of men I suspect mostly stands on the side drinking a pint when I start hitting the dance floor. This is not because he is too embarrassed to show off his dad dancing, but because he needs several pints to give him the confidence to go up and strut his funky stuff. Which can be very funky indeed. Particularly if he is throwing me round the dance floor to the dulcet tones of Ray Davies and You Really Got Me. Indeed, I rather suspect if he hadn't grown in a house bristling with testosterone and had had dancing lessons like his older brother (who hated them), he might have been rather good at it. I have been very very keen to get him dancing ever since I went to salsa lessons a few years ago, but time, inclination and not enough beer has prevented him from taking me up on the offer.

As it was his birthday, we went out for dinner with several friends on Saturday night to a tapas bar. Helas, no dancing there either, but much red wine and good cheer (and in my case too much talking to get round to eating, but rather a lot of red wine drinking - oh dear), and after a lot of both we staggered on home via two pubs. We ended up in our local (which has as promised for years to several drinking buddies, made a cameo in Strictly Love - I have made a lot of stuff up about it, because quite frankly you wouldn't believe the stories that really exist about the place). Sometimes they have bands on in our local, and it has been known for us to strut our funky stuff there after dark. But helas. There was no music on on Saturday. Just a lot more wine. But no dancing...

We eventually staggered home at just gone midnight, and I have vague memories of watching the rugby, which our oldest daughter had videoed for the man in my life. They were so vague I still didn't know who'd won in the morning. Then we decided to sit in the kitchen, opening a bottle of wine we needed like a hole in the heads, and listening to the new Alison Moyet CD my husband had bought that day.

At that point, enough red wine and good cheer had been consumed for him to suddenly realise that Alison Moyet just begged to be danced with, which she most certainly certainly does at one in the morning when you are nearly too pissed to stand, let alone put one foot in front of the other. I was trying really really hard to remember Izobela's strictures about 3/4 time and whether it is back step, side, close, forward, and spin, while trying to impress on my husband the importance of him following me into dancing heaven without falling over.

I am pleased to report, we didn't fall over, I did feel like I'd got the hang of snake hips (in vino muchos exagiteras me thinks) and it was ever so much fun.

But I think like Alison Moyet, it would have been better to be invisible...

Following on from such a triumph, we had a sneaky day off together without the children on Monday, and then treated ourselves to chinese for tea. The children decided that as it was a party (the great thing about there being six of us in the house is we can have instant parties), we had to LISTEN to music. The first song they inflicted on us was Grace Kelly by Mika. I have had this shoved down my throat ad nauseam since the eldest bought his CD recently, but I have to confess it does make my toes tap. So as is my wont when I am loading the dishwasher, my toes were soon tapping and so where the childrens' - although the older two affect nonchalance at the embarrassment of having a mother who boogies round the kitchen while putting the dishes away.

This was then followed by a swift run through The Hoosiers new album, which we'd bought my husband for his birthday. The children's favourite is Worried about Ray, which has the most barking video I've seen in a long time. But as I like naff SF movies, it kind of works for me.

And it certainly makes your toes tap...

But just as well you can't see me dancing from here...


PS As my lack of grasp of video sharing technology seems to prevent me from sending a video direct to this blog you can hop over to the other one to see the nuttiness of the Hoosier video in all its glory.