Technologically challenged

Wednesday 30^th April

This was the night of the Black and White Ball. The ballroom was packed. I went down 45 minutes early to get a seat front and centre, and there were already people sitting along the sides waiting for the staff to set up the room after the cocktail parties! I managed to get a good seat.

It is lovely to see how people dress up for this. The Dance Hosts wore white dinner jackets. The other men were in a mixture of black and white dinner jackets. The ladies all wore black and white, either cocktail dresses or long dresses. I’d started the evening in a coloured long dress with a black sequinned jacket, but after the dance session I changed to a black sequinned cocktail dress. I was glad I’d changed. I would have looked out of place.

Dan and Olena, the professional dance couple, put on a performance for these special balls. They had asked me to video them so they could see if they were making any mistakes. This is why I’d made sure to get a seat in a prime position. Time passed and Dan didn’t turn up with their camera. At 10pm I dashed out to get my own, just in case there was a problem, and returned just before Dan turned up with his iPad. IPad? Oops, I’ve only used one of those occasionally. Still, it should have been okay once Dan set it up and showed me. No, I must have touched something wrong and ended up with it taking single shots, and then taking selfies! The writing down the side was in Russian or Ukrainian, so I could not even tell what to press to set it right. In the end I grabbed my own camera and used that.

I had a great evening and got in quite a bit of dancing, despite the number of people there. I think one of the passengers has decided I am his quickstep partner. That suits me. He is tall and moves beautifully around the floor. He must have fantastic spatial awareness as he seems to dance into every available space along the floor. When things are too tight we jive on the spot. I’m getting better and better at following him. Of course, it gets very hot and tiring when I do a few quicksteps in a short space of time with a jive with a Dance Host inbetween!