Getting into gear

First visit of the New Year to La Tasca on Saturday. Looked a bit iffy at the start - four men and no women - but by half eleven things were looking up. One guy brought four women with him which evened things up. Really glad to see Laura there: once again she tells me she's going to make the effort to come regularly. Let's hope so - she's got so much natural talent.

The dance floor filled up later on. Other good things included meeting a couple of good new women dancers I hadn't encountered before, dancing bachata with Anita (I think we almost looked as if we knew what we were doing), and dancing with Sofia for the first time in months.

It's been a busy week. I was working in Ammanford so I checked out the Monkey Bar in Swansea on Tuesday night. Dylan Thomas' "ugly, lovely town" is looking decidedly slick nowadays, but the Monkey Bar is pretty funky, and being Swansea it's pretty friendly too. I had some nice dances with Sarah T and we managed to sneak into the rueda as well. I knew a couple of the other dancers there, including Nicky. I didn't realise she'd be DJing - luckily she found time to dance with me as well. The music was good, too: not purist salsa, with a fair bit of merengue and other stuff. There were a few Latinos there, including one woman who was leading two other women in salso trio at one point. I had a very entertaining dance with Sally who gets to Risa occasionally. She couldn't remember where she'd danced with me before, and when I told her she said that explained why I was doing 'Cardiff moves'.

I wasn't sure whether Risa last night would be a good idea as I was really tired and had an incipient sore throat. But I had a brilliant time and left feeling totally refreshed. Part of that is because a lot of my favourtie dancers were there, but it's also a lot to do with the music which was spot on, with some really nice slow tracks among the fast stuff.

I'm supposed to be going to the Claverton Rooms tomorrow evening if my cold holds off.