Come dancing, June 2003

Been a while since the last update... Figured it'd be boring just to mention one week "Felled & cut up 5 pine trees this weekend..." and "Felled and cut up 4 trees this weekend..." etc.

Anyway, I've felled & cut up many young pine trees over the last few months. Have quite a pile drying in the woodshed, and lots more weathering out there under their luckier mates. Who get to live & er... just stand there I guess, till I get round to them too.

Planning to thin the small ones out & have tracks that M & her friends can use for mountain biking etc.

Aside from that, we've cleared all the overgrown jasmine type stuff & bamboo out from around the fence by the house - and uncovered a horrid old pergola that's been cemented into a huge paving stone. We're wondering how to get it out now, and then what to do with it (T wants to put it over the small gate to the street - I want it over the gate to the sheep paddocks. Negotiations continue. We may need explosives to get it out from beside the house though. The concrete it is set into goes at least a metre down! Bet you're looking forward now to THAT update)

Oh, I'm obligated to mention that T has curtains up now, on every window save the spare bedroom, and the sleepout.

Yesterday, to vary things a bit, I noticed one of the sheep rubbing herself furiously against a fence post, and in the interests of seeing if it's got easier to pen them, I decided to check her out for fly strike.

Ten minutes later, with no help from anyone else (Wilma is more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to this, she sticks her head through the netting, lolling it around like one of those things in the back of a car, all doggy grin & fangs & drool - this does tend to keep them nicely down the other end of the pen though, once they're there - if she's on the sheep side of the fence, she can't seem to help herself chasing them all over the show & is very difficult to calm down - usually I pen them out of her way when we're there (she's restrained enough not to try getting over or under the fence) & tie her up at night), I had them, along with me, and Wilma's head, in a pen about 4 x 2 metres in size. Then another 10 minutes were spent bellowing for assistance "Come look at this! And can you bring the hand shears, hoof clippers, fly strike & footrot sprays - oh... and my gloves too?"

By god those suckers are heavy. By the time I'd flipped 3 of them on their backs, inspected for flystrike, footrot, overgrown hooves (I cut poor old George's toe - I was surprised at how much blood this produced. The poor fellow didn't even flinch - although I expect it wasn't as painful as when the shearer cut Otto’s willy by mistake "Jeez - this one's a boy!" - we let him know George was a boy in advance when it came his turn. they get a hammering), I wasn't sure I could manage the others... but I did, y'know, a man's gotta do what etc. Crutched them all (not too messy a job as it turned out). No flystrike. Very minor footrot in a couple of them, nothing to write to your friends about though (ooh.. sorry).

Anyway, that's not the reason for this update, I'm here to tell you MEN how you can save thousands of dollars. Thousands. If not tens of thousands. AND win kudos from the wife/girlfriend/etc.

The answer is dancing lessons.

Let's say you have a significant other who has say, for the sake of argument... everything. And her birthday is coming up. And you know that the only thing she hasn't got, but covets, is that $30,000 emerald ring in a swanky jewellers on Lambton Quay. But, you remember (or fabricate) that she once mentioned she'd really like to be able to do more than just shuffle round the dance floor at the one wedding or so a decade you get invited to.

Personal dancing lessons are the answer... you can hunt down all the dance schools (and this can be quite a diverting way to spend a few lunchtimes, there are usually leotard-clad young women limbering in the background while you quiz the teacher about how long it takes to become fred & Ginger, and how much personal dance lessons cost, and hey, can you repeat that? I wasn't listening sorry.). And bingo, approximately $29, 800 saved instantly.

We've had two lessons so far - I had imagined a snake hipped Catherine Zeta Jones number taking us through the moves (actually, I imagine that in many situations). But that was, as usual, a bit wishful. Anyhow, the first lesson was spent doing basic foxtrot & rumba - and how to turn when you run out of dance floor (or have to avoid some other couple). There were some instances when we got the steps right, and there were instances when we were in time with the music, And I think one short moment, when we had the steps right AND were in time with the music.

For the second lesson, we had to share the floor with another couple & their personal trainer. They were a lot more Fred & Ginger (a lot more), polishing their waltz & tango - their third lesson I presume. Mostly we kept out of their way :-). We learned lots more tricks for foxtrot & rumba. One of which I can even remember if I concentrate real hard. Sadly, we had to rumba & foxtrot to waltz & tango music, and so it became a case of not trying to get in sync with the music, but trying to ignore it.

Lesson 3 is this week. And although once again we promised to practise, we haven't... relying again on our natural talent & rhythm to see us through...

Next weekend I'll be felling & cutting up pine trees. Although sometime soon (maybe) we'll be getting heavy machinery in to remove a shed & barn & concrete foundations. That should be an interesting weekend.