rhubarbtriangle

rhubarbtriangle @ 2009-11-19T16:55:00

2009-11-19T16:55:20Z

I found a slug in my glass of orange on Friday. I should say, i found a slug in my half-drunk glass of orange juice.
Fortunately i spotted it before taking that last hearty gulp.
I spent the next half hour trying to work out how it got there
As i let myself out of the house to head to town i had the horrid thought "what if slugs were breeding in the fridge!!!?"
Nah, i thought, the cold would probably make them sluggish......

So, do slugs ever feel sluggish and how do they tell?

Today i had a random urge to look up an old classmate on the internet, I don't know why. It turns out Simon Fitchett is the personal trainer of David Coulthard. I was impressed!
I told Dave but he was so underwhelmed by this news of someone he never met and never will meet that he didn't bother to reply.
I don't blame him, but sometimes i regret losing touch with all my old classmates for the simple reason that i could tell this kind of thing to someone who might care. Today i also discovered that Nora Ismail is a copywrighter in Malaysia and that Angie Yap plays the guitar and likes Metalica. Facebook is shrinking the world.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2009-11-11T17:05:00

2009-11-11T17:08:47Z

I had a strange one today.
I was speaking to a police officer who has won an award.
Knowing he has changed jobs recently i asked,"So, what are you doing now?"
"What do you mean!!!!???" he asked, clearly alarmed.
"Oh, i see, you mean the job? I thought you meant right now and were watching me or something."

So.. paranoid, or up to no good?
;-)

rhubarbtriangle @ 2009-08-07T13:43:00

2009-08-07T12:44:22Z

...should be firm, ripe and unblemished, well shaped and rounded.
...should have firm white, straight, non bulbous barrels with no evidence of damage.
...should be dressed, with clean, unbroken, well ripened skins free from ribbing or discolouration.
...should be long, straight, shapely, fresh, tender and of good colour.
...should be fresh, tender, straight, uniform in thickness and colour with short handle.

yes. It's flower and produce show time again!!!!!!
The above apply to cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, leeks, onions.., honestly!
We have got to find our amusements where we can in local papers.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2009-05-21T21:16:00

2009-05-21T20:24:31Z

It really annoyed me when last year the government tried to hijack the English language by deciding that binge drinking was five pints on a Friday night when we all know a proper binge involves, gutters, vomiting and, quite possibly loosing all memory of how you got home.
Not that i have ever done that myself i hasten to add, but i defend my right to try it once in a while without the government trying to rearrange the English language.
Today, obviously bewildered that their warnings had not changed our habits overnight, the NHS released the results of a survey warning that one in four of the population is engaged in "Hazardous drinking".
Now doesn't that sound FUNNNNN?!!
Move over extreme ironing, here we come hazardous drinking!
They are such plonkers.
They should just give up using words and put up big pictures of diseased livers.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2009-05-19T17:10:00

2009-05-19T16:13:21Z

AARERGH!
It took me two hours and forty minutes to get to work this morning because of a fatal accident that closed the M62 completely from Junction 27 to 28, gridlocking all local roads.
The accident happened at 6.20, they promised the roads will be back to normal by 2pm...6pm...and now 8pm.
I don't know whether to attempt a break towards Dewsbury and Junction 40 or just stay put and fume. I don't know why I mention this, only it seems i am stuck at work for the forseeable and have no one else to talk to.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2009-04-23T21:10:00

2009-04-23T20:10:22Z

I was behind a white mini bus today, bearing the legend "Nemesis travel"
????!!?!?????!?!????????
I had visions of a grumpy looking Darth Vader, having cashed in the Death Star, sharing the back seat with Magneto while the Joker threw little bits of his packed lunch at them.
Hard times for everyone now!
I did almost take down their number just so i could phone them later and ask, "What were you thinking?"

In other news, some cruel scientist has made fish seasick in a misguided attempt to get to the bottom of spacesickness in humans, or something like that. I am sure someone who read the artcle properly will correct me on this one. Apparently they loaded them into an aquarium on a free fall flight and watched the results. Some started going round in little circles, looking disorientated and "looking like they were going to be sick". How does a fish look like it is going to be sick? Does it's little mouth pucker, its chest heave and does it go green around the gills? Can fish even be sick? It didn't end well. Just as the poor sick things were thinking "i just want to die, kill me now!", the scientists obliged and cut up their brains. Poor fish.

These little stories keep me going.
I was going to say something about my life, silversmithing progress, exhausting Sunday dance class on top of a cycle ride with Dave, Dave's bike traumas and how i can't even keep up with him when he is running and i am cycling but its all either pathetic or boring. So I won't

rhubarbtriangle @ 2009-04-10T13:38:00

2009-04-10T12:49:09Z

Good heavens, i haven't posted since January!
It's not that i haven't seen lots of funny news stories and pictures I just haven't seemed to have the time to get up here and get posting.
It doesn't help that i have been utterly obsessed with my silversmithing course, so much so that i have signed on for a new one before the first one was over. My head is bursting with ideas and i resent everything that takes me away from it.
My Bellydance obsession was also revived by last week's festival in Saltair. I always leave with lots of ideas for costumes, jewellery and paintings...and for dances, of course.
I had an amazing weekend with some fabulous teachers, Khaled, Michelle Pender, Lulu Sabongi and Lorna Gow, did a little light shopping, ate wonderful curry and generally had an excellent time.
This last week however has been less than fun. In order to get our four days off we basically needed to do most of the paper on Wednesday and Thursday. Not fun.
Now we are meant to be going to Warwick for the first re-enactment in ages and i just can't muster any enthusiasm for it. It's gray, wet and I am full of cold and the idea of camping is just not doing it for me right now, assignations under cedar trees not withstanding.
Re-enactment is a great and varied hobby, i just have neither the time nor the money for it at the moment.
Oh well, off to do some washing up and grump at Dave :-)

rhubarbtriangle @ 2009-01-16T12:32:00

2009-01-16T12:36:35Z

I feel sick.
Before Christmas a seal went on my water pump - Nearly £200

After Christmas my Gear box needed replacing - £555 (they replaced the clutch too)

and on Tuesday my head gasket went, the inlet manifold melted,seizing the engine and damaging a piston - cost of a new second hand engine - £550.

How unlucky is is possible to be with one car in one month?
The warranty, by the way, is not worth the paper it is written on.

I am just stunned and shakey and pathetic and looking forward to a very big hug when Dave gets home tonight.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-12-21T13:31:00

2008-12-21T13:40:21Z

I've missed you all but I have been hibernating.
Work's crap, blood pressure is crap, Christmas is crap but i really should make more of an effort to get out.
It's been ages since i was on LJ, partly because this room is an attic and unheated, but weeks ago this happened to cheer me up.
The cabinet moved up to Leeds one Friday for a bit of PR.
Last thing that day Jacqui Smith and Ed Balls visited our patch so i went to interview them and wotnot. After their tour of a youth centre some of the children started to ask them for autographs. I wondered just how much the children had understood of who they had been talking to, until little Shannon demonstrated exactly how much she had understood by coming up to me and requesting my autograph. She then went on to collect autographs from a security guard, a PCSO and a youth services worker.
Sometimes, just sometimes children are great.

1-3 to the Fiesta

2008-10-25T10:29:07Z

Oh ye of little faith, those of you who may in the past have had occasion to be rude about Dave's car.
Dave's Fiesta saw off two Imprezas and a Volvo, and it's still square...squarish.
I found my way to the broker's yard to pick up the contents of the car and it's still car shaped, It lost a side window when they broke in - lazy gits! I am sure even i could have broken in without breaking a window!
There is a flat front tyre, some damage below the back bumper,some skids along both sides and s slightly dented front end.
You see, pre crumple zones they made cars out of proper amounts of metal. I feel quite proud of it in a weird kind of way.
I was meant to be taking pictures for Dave but i think i may have messed them up by not winding on properly on the idiot camera. Sorry Dave. I was distracted and have a splitting headache from getting into a huff earlier.
Sadly no signs of blood.

Don't mind me

2008-10-25T08:45:06Z

Just letting off steam,
RAC route finer is rubbish, AA is Rubbish and AAARRRRRHGGHHGHHHHGHHHHHH!
Our only A-z of sheffield was in Dave's car.
I need to get to Vulcan Road to pick up the car's contents for Dave and the internet is being completely and utterly, infuriatingly disobliging.
How can such a simple task become so dratted iritating?
I am on the verge of just getting a taxi and charging dave for it, that's how much i hate driving when i don't know where i am going.
Pathetic i know.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-10-21T20:57:00

2008-10-21T19:57:15Z

So,loonies.
I got a genuine messiah wannabe last week. We have our fair share of eccentrics in the town but i have never come across anyone as completely off his trolley as this one.
He seemed normal enough on the phone when he arranged to come into the office for a chat but when six foot of grey fuzzy prophet beard, wild hair and an exceedingly ugly crucifix walked in I began to have my doubts.
He started with a tale of debts and debt collectors before segueing neatly into his second reason for coming which was basically to persuade me to announce him to the world as the next messiah.
After spouting an impressive stream of numerology interspersed with his own take on religion, global warming and why a certain tarot book predicted his coming, he declared that he was to write 12 more books for the Bible.
"eerm, is that going well then? How far have you got with them?" i asked tentatively, to be told that the whole debt thing was rather slowing progress.
I had to keep taking everything down just to stop smirking and though i did laugh a lot once he had left, there was a lot of pathos in the situation.
At once point he digressed onto a treatment for thrombosis he received at Dewsbury Hospital.
He said: "Only at Dewsbury Hospital they put the nutters in with the normal people and there were people screaming all night so you couldn't get any sleep. Not that i blame them mind, they don't know what they are doing."
I guess they know about him and reckon he is harmless.
If you happen to want to know when his mother was born, how that predicted the London bombings, when he last touched a woman in a physical way and when he last cut his beard, what he wrote to Bush, Blair, Gordon Brown and that bloke from Radio Five, then i am your girl.
But it won't be going in the paper any time soon.
Not least because he asked my age and then said: "if you don't mind me saying, you are wearing well!"
I'm thirty bleeding two, what does he F******expect, dentures and cataracts?
*laughs*

story

2008-10-21T19:35:38Z

Hello,
I was going to post something about local nutters and why i am off loony duties for a while but really they exhaust me just thinking about them, so have instead a little story i wrote in my head on the way back home yesterday when i really should have been paying more attention to my driving :-)

Malcolm stared with glassy eyes at the road ahead, half mesmerised by the flicker of cats eyes and of the white lines ticking off the miles as they passed.

He liked driving at night, he had been doing it for years and it gave him time to think and sometimes, to brood.
After 25 years on the road he prided himself that he could virtually drive on auto-pilot, passing lorries when necessary, with barely a glance, maintaining a nice smooth pace that ate up the miles between jobs.

He used to drive during the day but with the roads getting busier he preferred now to do his travelling at night when he could relax, switch off and enjoy having the road to himself.

-----------------------------------------
Slow Down, Accident Ahead.
-----------------------------------------
He snorted, the overhead signs were wrong 50 per cent of the time.
You would slow down for whatever obstruction they were predicting, drive carefully for a few miles and then you were in the clear, with never a sight of whatever they were warning about whether it was fog, llamas in the road or a traffic queue.

------------------------
Don't Drive Tired.
------------------------
He wondered at them sometimes. Who decided what was written? Was it all computerised or was there a gray room somewhere with a lone operative slumped in front of ranks of monitors showing grainy images of roads across the country. Did they ever get bored, he wondered, typing up "Don't drive tired" for the hundredth time that day, did they ever get tempted to type something else or were they constrained by a little book of rules and officially sanctioned phrases.

-------
Die
-------
His heart gave a lurch, did that say what he thought it did?
No, it couldn't have.
He laughed.
Someone was taking the piss. Oh well, perhaps after all there was someone stuck alone in a little gray room, wishing away the hours till the morning shift change.

Still, it wasn't very nice.
In his imaginings Malcolm might have thought the mystery typist might have indulged in some whimsy, praised him for his choice of car, asked a pretty girl out, teased a trucker for having eaten too many pies but not this, not this bald, stark...threat. That was creepy.

---------------------------------
You Are Going To Die.
---------------------------------
This time Malcolm saw it clearly. He was looking out for the sign so had plenty of time to read it several times. It wasn't his imagination. His hands grew clammy on the wheel.

Malcolm spent the next few miles mentally composing a letter of complaint to the Highways Agency, working himself up into a state of pleasurable indignation.

But still, he was unsettled.
He looked in his rear view mirror where all was darkness but far up ahead he could just see the red lights of a lorry and somehow that small indication of life comforted him. He was not alone.

The emptiness of the road no longer gave him any pleasure and suddenly he craved company, even the impersonal brief contact that you get from buying an over priced drink from a surly server in a service station.

Malcolm wanted to be among people and perhaps a coffee wouldn't go amiss.
He would stop at the next services, there was bound to be one soon.
Malcolm wondered if he would tell anyone at the service station about the signs. Perhaps they would laugh, perhaps they would share his anger at whoever was playing with him, more likely some spotty and tired teenager would stare with the dumb incomprehension they seem to reserve for conversations with anyone over 40.

Perhaps though the next morning the teenager would tell his friends of his late night encounter and an urban myth would be born.

Now where was that service station? There had been no signs for miles.

-----------
The medic zipped up the bag up, covering the bloody and still face of the middle-aged and nondescript man who, it would appear, had an hour or so previously driven straight off the motorway into a tree.

The medic had seen it all before. If someone drives off a straight stretch of road in the early hours of the morning, nine times out of ten they had fallen asleep at the wheel.

Stupid ****.
Didn't they read the signs?
The blue and orange lights of emergency vehicles reflected off the black plastic of the body bag as it was loaded into the ambulance.

Around them emergency workers got on with their jobs with quiet efficiency, sweeping up glass, taking photographs, winching the battered car onto a pick-up.

------------
------------------------
Don't Drive Tired
------------------------
Malcolm snorted, gee thanks, he thought, good suggestion, now how about providing a service station to sell me a coffee.

At least the sign was normal. He had been quite un-nerved about the last one.
He looked again in his rear view mirror and saw nothing but the darkness while in front the pool of his lights illuminated a small patch of road, the twinkling cats eyes, the broken line, stretching out beyond, on, ever onwards.

------------
The End
------------

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-10-21T20:30:00

2008-10-21T19:30:11Z

My weekend at Jewel of Yorkshire completely failed to provide a single moment of reportable gossip, diva-ish strops or jokes.
It was really nice, my teachers were all excellent and lovely, the show good, the weather pleasant etc etc etc.
All of which makes for a dull post.
So, did you hear the latest misogynistic joke from Iran?
A car manufacturer has come up with a range of cars aimed at women with suitable colours and upholstery, it's an automatic and has parking aids and sat nav.
Well, it sounds like the start of a nasty joke, only it's true, which makes me laugh anyway.
There has been a lot of weird news to counteract the economic situation.
Obviously horrible but fascinating is the case of the gay chef who stabbed to death a man who, he claimed, was going to rape him. After stabbing him repeatedly he carved some pieces out and took them down to the kitchen and cooked them. The papers dwelt morbidly on the details such as the fact he seasoned the meat with fresh herbs before cooking it. Fresh herbs???? straight into hot fat? what's the point of that?. I don't know, calls himself a chef. I wouldn't eat anything he prepared!
oops, look like i didn't post this at the time.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-10-03T20:09:00

2008-10-03T19:23:19Z

*sigh*
This time last Friday i was glowing with slight sun burn but happy and heading back to Madrid from a day out in Segovia with Dave.
Segovia, if you have never heard of it, is a UNESCO World Heritage site boasting Europe's last built gothic cathedral (which might not be long for the world given the cracks on one wall!), lots of medieval town wall, 12th century churches, a very well preserved first century AD aqeduct and an alcazar (castle)to make Walt Disney weep.
And they eat baby piglets...what's not to like?
Actually lunch in the square was to be the highlight of the day and i sat back with pride and love to watch Dave suck on a tiny trotter.
Ok i am trying to upset you.
But the Segovians have a strange relationship with pigs.
Stop it!
That's not what i meant at all.
You will see one restaurant with a window display of real little sucking pigs lined up and ready to be shoved in a bread oven and next to it a shop making all the capital it can out of how sweet piglets are. There are pig piggy banks, bottle openers, and naff models of cute pigs on their backs, their little eyes and cute snub noses screwed up in giggles, their little round stomachs and tiny trotters, squirming in mirth...in the clay pots they are cooked in.
Strange people.
Of course none of that stopped us having cochinillo for lunch and very nice it was too. I now hope to encourage Dave to try cabrito too if he can get it.
Other than that i dragged poor Dave round two museums, a gallery and several parks and he rowed me round the boating lake in the Retiro and dragged me to umpteen restaurants, bars and a goth club.
My knees no longer work and both now make horrible noises but i had a lovely weekend.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-08-26T20:22:00

2008-08-26T19:24:37Z

I don't get it! This blithering thing is refusing to accept my existence again and by posting dumbass posts like this seems to be the only way i can get it to recognise i am here and let me see the infinitely more interesting things my friends are posting.
I am sure if i could be bothered there is some very deep philosophy at work but really i am not in the mood.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-08-21T20:38:00

2008-08-21T19:39:15Z

Help! They have deleted me, I no longer exist and don't know how to find anyone again!

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-07-04T19:04:00

2008-07-04T18:11:19Z

I was working in Dewsbury today and on the way out spotted a sign reading: "Qualified florist in next layby."
Strewth, i thought, that's good, you wouldn't want to trust just anyone to sell you a bunch of carnations!
They are a load of ...jokers in Dewsbury.
I hit a big traffic jam on my way out just as I spotted the first sign warning me that the road ahead was closed and i had to follow the diversion signs. So that's what i did, dutifully following the few yellow signs into the wilds of Earlsheaton before they suddenly ended and i was faced with a closed road. I swore, did a u-turn and headed back to the original road, the one that was meant to be closed......followed it and got home.
So what utter prat put signs up warning of a closure and then diverted people to the closure and away from a perfectly open route?

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-07-01T18:13:00

2008-07-01T17:17:08Z

I'm not the only one!!!!
Not the only one to walk away from cash points without my cash.
Fortunately Kelly (I think it was, i was driving by though) had a nice lady standing behind him who gave him his money back. So let's hear it for the nice woman in a blue shirt who is not at all like many of the thieving Hillsborough scum who stand in lines at cash points.
Bitter, moi?
It was a bright moment in a appalling drive home. I wonder if accident rates go up with the temperature because today i saw more road-based idiocy and downright dangerous driving in one hour than i have seen in the last month.
GGGRRRRRRRRRR.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-06-27T18:05:00

2008-06-27T17:12:29Z

We watched Blood Diamond this week. I don't think it was really awful...as such but it was all a bit smug and self satisfied.
My favourite bit though came as the doughty pair of heroes are trudging through a swamp, many hard days journey into their search for this pink diamond. They have been shot at, beaten up, crashed in cars and been trapped in war zones but it is only then that Leonardo Di Caprio thinks to ask: "So, tell be about this diamond, is it cloudy or clear, is the colour rich and does it capture the light?"
Now i don't claim to be an expert....but shouldn't he have considered asking these questions 12 scenes and umpteen unspeakable experiences ago?
He then crowns the turd (is that an expression? it should be!) by asking: "what size is it? as big as a bird's egg?"
The two-dimensional black hero agrees, without once asking if Leonardo meant a tit or an Ostrich.
I think i prefer films that have no pretentions.

LJ therapy needed!

2008-06-27T16:24:55Z

I am fuming, i fumed down the motorway and for pretty much the whole day.
It's an enfuriating character trait that I hate conflict and when i have one i then spend the next six months agonising about it.
So in an attempt to head this one off at the pass, i shall share:
Someone sent in a story about the bag-a-bra scheme fundraising for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. I read it carefully and then told the sender it was against my conscience to write the story, explained why and said i would pass it on to a colleague to do the story.
She hit the roof and sent an e-mail to my colleague saying that i was meant to be impartial and how dare i.
Now Bag-a-bra seeks to raise money to keep the Air Ambulance in the air by getting women to donate their bras which are then sold in West Africa to raise money for the Yorkshire charity.
In Africa thoughtless food aid and the selling of cheap second hand clothes is leading to farmers giving up farming and the closure of small clothing factories and businesses as they can't compete. Such donations therefore lead to a culture of dependency on richer countries and prevent the creation of sustainable businesses.
"Shouldn't they be given that choice?" this woman asked, presumably ignoring the fact that while bra buyers may chose a cheap bra today, if the factories close they won't have any choice tomorrow.
So i am bloody furious with this woman who basically expects me to put up and shut up and encourage our readers to give thoughlessly to a scheme that can actually cause material harm.
So....if anyone has read this far, was i wrong? is there no place for ethics in journalism?
(answers based on soap-opera portrayals of "local hacks" will be treated with ...i don't know, probably some sulking)

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-06-12T22:18:00

2008-06-12T21:19:18Z

Istanbul was magical, it's still my favourite city and i was glad so many of my friends also seemed to like it.
Ken and Ebru's wedding was lovely and they could not have chosen a more beautiful location, perched on a wooded hillside next to a medieval fortress and with views over the Bosporus with its palaces and huge bridges.
Ju seems to have said it all really, spearing me the bother of a blow by blow account.
So i shall tell you something random instead.
The cherries were gorgeous, ripe and shiny and just begging to be eaten and at 5YTL a kg they were a steal so i asked the barrow man for a kilo and got my money out.
But half way through filling a paper bag he started to look unsettled, then the nut stall trundled off, followed by the melon man so, without saying a thing he dropped the bag he was filling and set off down the road with his load.
I guessed that the police were probably on their way and that such stalls are unlicensed and illegal so I passed my money to Dave, pointed after the vanishing stall and said: "follow those cherries!" I then sat back to watch and laugh as the nervous stall holder, with many glances behind him set off with a slightly embarrassed Dave in hot pursuit. They disappeared behind vehicles and the last i saw of Dave was as he disappeared down a distant side street looking back at me and doing a comedy walk. As i waited, and waited i started to wonder if enticement by cherries was a surreal way of luring someone to a mugging, before deciding Dave was more likely to be beaten up in Sheffield.
It reminded me of when i lived in Spain and the markets would be full of unlicensed South American bands. They would have young boys to warn them the police were near and would then quickly pack up and set themselves up on another street corner. I don't know why they bothered as they were hardly in stealth mode, with their maracas, pan pipes and jangly guitars, and everyone within a km radius could find them if they had wanted to.
Ach! I burble.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-05-18T19:31:00

2008-05-18T18:44:21Z

I am sure people feel sorry for Dave when they hear me nagging him but really, they don't have to live with him!
I made a salad last week after getting in from work, lots of lettuce, cucumber and cold crunchy veg. "Would it go with pasta?" Dave asked. I had visions of steamed lettuce wilting sadly among the fussili.
He's not normal.
He has a motorbike that has given him endless problems and certainly no joy since he bought it. Having just got the blessed thing running (but not actually going anywhere yet, let's not rush things!) he is contemplating being sent to Madrid for six months with work. Yesterday he seriously started talking about storing it in the living room while he was in Spain. He thought i was being terribly unreasonable when i hit the roof and vetoed the idea. Two bicycles in the kitchen is one thing, a heap of oily oozing junk in the living room is quite another.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-04-14T21:49:00

2008-04-14T21:02:46Z

I have a new old car, well, that's to say a new not nearly as old as the really old car car.
I tend to lose it in car parks though as i am not in the habit of looking out for a grey car, so i may not have it for long.
My brother delivered it on Friday and as i was away for the weekend i didn't get to drive it until i had to go to work this morning.
Sooooo... while filling up in a very busy petrol station in Morley a nice lady had to come and help me lock the filler cap. Yes, i felt silly.
But not nearly as silly as i would have felt had i phoned the RAC later that day because i couldn't find reverse gear. I briefly toyed with asking the hoodies loitering in the car park if they knew how to drive my car but dismissed that as far too embarrassing and even considered physically pushing the car back out of the parking space and then working out where reverse was once i got back to Sheffield..but in the end just phoned my father and asked him.
Well. I have never seen a gear knob like that before! How was i to know you have to grip the sheath and move it up before selecting reverse?
Perhaps i had better stop loitering on LJ and go and read the manual.

rhubarbtriangle @ 2008-04-14T21:30:00

2008-04-14T20:49:16Z

I had a fabulous time at JoY and don't hurt too much from my four workshops, even though Aida Nour is a complete dynamo and much fitter than a woman her age has any right to be. She would just keep going for two hours straight.
During my first class with her she took a break from Saaidi and started doing floor work which we were supposed to copy. Half way through she flopped over onto her back and stuck one leg up in the air ...and i am sure several people must have been a hair-breadth from copying her before realising she just had cramp.
That's always a risk with "i do, you copy" teachers.
I did feel sorry for one poor girl in Aida Nour's Andalous class. She had her arms half raised while Aida had hers framing her hips and Aida, seeing this in the mirror, kept staring at the poor girl, waggling her eyebrows in a fearsome manner and thrumming with indignation. Eventually Aida stormed over to the CD player, switched it off and then marched up to the girl and shouted at her, demanding to know why she had her arms up and why she wasn't paying any attention. No one knew where to look.
You don't have a class with an Egyptian star and expect to go home feeling all warm and positively reinforced.
It was still good.
Apart from that...well, lots of wine was drunk, nice food was eaten and good conversations were had in excellent company....oh, and Ju bought me a lovely duo of sparkly bracelets to "cheer me up". I hadn't meant to look miserable but i was really touched and shall now have to go away and design an entire costume around them ;-)