Tiny amounts of snow last night, so I was worried there wouldn’t be many dancers. But in fact we had a fair few. Indeed, this time both of the really cute girls brought their boyfriends with them. *sigh*

I keep promising myself that one of these days I’m going to find out what all these people’s names are. Last night I only suceeded in finding out that the tall friendly lady is called Mandy. (I’m almost blogging this if only so I remember!)

As is traditional, I spent most of the night dancing by myself. I got to play with Linda a few times though. Particularly while demonstrating… the Double Bunny Hop. This is considerably harder than it sounds; while the regular Bunny Hop is fairly easy (provided your partner knows what she’s doing), the double is considerably more tricky. In particular, it involves swapping hands quite quickly, at just the right moment. I’m still not 100% sure what’s supposed to happen here.

We also had a go at a move that Linda is planning to teach to the Advanced class later this week. Apparently it’s “a bit like the Lindy Hop”. (Um, OK. Whatever…) I couldn’t tell you if that’s true (it was also likened to a Charleston move), but I can tell you it’s fairly tricky. Especially since Linda doesn’t seem to remember exactly how it’s supposed to go. (!) Smooth, Linda, smooth. I’m sure the Advanced class are going to have a lot of fun with this one.

While we were getting ready to leave, I had a chat with Mandy, who seems to think there’s a lot of Rock & Roll dance events going on around the place. It’s news to me, but hey. She says I should come along, and that almost anyone will dance with anyone. It seems worthy of further investigation at least.

As usual, I was the last to leave. I was so busy chatting to Mandy I hadn’t even taken my dance shoes off. While I was doing that I told Linda about the epic dance me and Lois had at the Valentine’s Ball. She just laughed, and said something “about why not get her to come along to class?” I said that Monday night wasn’t good for her; Linda says she’ll probably be starting a new class soon; I said that was what Lois was waiting for.

I got downstairs and noticed that it was now about a quarter to nine. I thought about going into the dance hall to see if I could find Pauline. But it sounded like they were practicing steps in there; no music playing, just lots of feet moving in unison to the sound of Steve’s voice. I walked outside. I got half way across the road. I stood in the middle of the road. I turned around and walked back in.

My plan was to say hello as people milled past me leaving the room, but the receptionist said “why don’t you wait for them in the hall? I’m sure nobody will mind.” So I did. The class were at this point attempting to master that Mambo move I learned on Friday. Then they did a Samba. (Mavis tried to get me to join in. Heh.) And after that there was some sort of Waltz. (I think Steve said “Catherine Waltz”.)

When all the dancing had finished, the few faces I recognised all seemed to be concentrated in one particular part of the hall, so I strode over there. (No sign of Paul and Pauline — I’m not completely sure they’re even in this particular class — but a few others I recognise, even if I’m not sure where from!) The people I spoke to greeted me with varying degrees of interest. Almost all of them asked “you’re not in the next class, are you?”

Back in the Old Days, Friday night would see me and a bunch of my classmates down at the Cuba or the New Inn for a drink after class. My plan was to ask if anybody wanted to go do that. But as I watched the assembled group meander towards the door, it seems that they were already intending to do this anyway. (In fact, it appears they do so every week.) Somebody asked if I wanted to join, and obviously I said I’d be delighted to.

So we all drove over to the New Inn. Inexplicably, it was closed. One of the group got out of their car and scampered over to mine. “It’s shut for some reason. I think we’re heading to the Black Horse instead. Do you know where that is? Oh, well, er, it’s probably best if you just follow us then.” So I followed their car to the bottom of the hill. They stopped at the mini roundabout, signalling right. I stopped, also signalling right. They went round it. I followed. And — ah. They performed a U-turn, and I had already executed a right turn.

Obviously there were now about 200 cars following me, so I didn’t have much option at this point. I drove on, took the next right and circled the block, but by then everybody was long gone. I did spent 30 minutes or so trying to extrapolate where they might have been heading, but I was unable to locate the Black Horse.

Damn. A nice evening with some actual company, ruined because of a simple navigational error. Curses!!

Still, I guess there’s always next week. Unless they’re really that put-out that I didn’t show up; I can’t imagine why they would be.

When I got home, I did try to use the Internet to solve my problem. But the only Black Horse that Google could find is 12 miles away (and there’s at least 4 pubs within 800 yards of the dance hall). And, inexplicably, Google Maps was completely broken. I don’t know what on Earth was wrong with it, but none of the controls would respond. Very odd. I guess it just wasn’t to be last night.