Colman

It's worth seeing as ballet. I've seen their nutcracker before and the first act was really charming and funny and a bit Irish - actually one of my favourite versions of it. The second act was fine too, but suffered because you're always comparing the classic choreography to the versions danced by the big pro companies. (And I didn't have any connection to the company at the time.)

The 8 year old has danced with their boys associates programme last year and this, and danced in their Midsummer's Night Dream last year. Not sure how/if they're using the associates in the Nutcracker, they have a lot of boys in the junior company this year. It's been amazingly good experience for him. (And the orchestra was amazing last year, did you see the show Lisa?) It's a pretty good group, putting on proper shows and doing lots of training. One of their alumni boys got into RBS upper school last year and good numbers of them go on to vocational training, mostly in U.K. Classes and rehearsals every Saturday and during midterm breaks and the like.

All those teachers who used to say "You won't always have a calculator with you!" ⌚

When I was of university course choosing age I was told by quite a number of people that I was wasting my results choosing to study mathematics rather than business (it was the end of the 80s!) Came in sort of handy when the internet exploded just as I was finishing up. You can never guess what's going to happen.

Black tight show up sweat least, I wear random close fitting t-shirts as fit my mood. Some ballet themed, some not.

Adult classes seem to fall somewhere between professional classes and kids classes for formality, so balance between what makes it easy for a teacher to see what you're doing, what you feel comfortable in and what you feel good dancing in. I know a lot of the ladies in my classes require a small act of bravery to turn up in leotards and tights so I'd feel bad being much more dressed than them. I wouldn't inflict a leotard on my classmates and the vision of me in dancebelt and shoes would cause a riot, and not in a good way. ???? Even for my exams it was tights/vest/tshirt, just white on top. Tights/leotard/tshirt would be an option too, if they made leotards in my size.

Men's ballets tights, dance belt, vest and close fitting tshirt works for me and doesn't scare the horses.

No, it was in the 16e, we had friends living nearby so it was convenient.

Is that hotel ok Janet? I've been looking for a new place to stay since someone converted the lovely, battered old hotel we used to stay in into a boutique joint charging three times as much.

Now I want to go to Paris.

Ile de la Cité (with Notre Dame) and Île Saint Louis are well worth a stroll. Berthillon ice cream *is* that good, and the tea room is wonderful. I always think the Louvre is a project in itself, too big for a weekend trip. And the queues. Oh, and bring a brolly!

Paris Opera obviously. They do cheap tickets, so maybe try and see a ballet if the timing works. Museé d'Orsay, with Degas's ballet art on the top floor. Book tickets before if you can, the queues are a horrible waste of time. Boat tour on the Seine is a nice way to see the city. Walk a lot. It's a lovely city for walking.

That is pretty good, apart from the "middle aged women" crack in the intro. Jane's lovely: we know her from her work with Ballet Ireland, and she gave us adults a workshop earlier this year, which was fun - though she did complain how out of shape she was, which was pretty hilarious to the rest of us as we tried to keep up.

I'd ask the/a university admissions office what the current rules are.

I'm not terribly familiar with the UK system, but that has the feel of the sort of thing that's very specific to an institution, when you started, what path you took, your circumstances and so on.

Thick sweatpants are going to give the effect of not having worn deodorant pretty quickly, whether one did or not! It depends on how strict the dress code is, though most of the male uniforms seem to give the choice between tights or dance shorts. Personally, I dance with tights/dance belt/vest and a fairly closely fitting t-shirt to draw a slight veil over proceedings as a mercy to my classmates. And a little spritz of Chanel Pour Monsieur, though, frankly, nothing is going to help at hour three of classes. Dance shorts over tights should be acceptable though if it makes you feel better - some of the ladies wear them some of the time.

Oh good grief. That's pathetic. I'll admit that I was concerned when I started that I'd be invading a women-only space, but my teacher and almost all the ladies were perfectly fine - mostly pleased to have a male dancer in fact. But I have the advantage that my wife was already in the class and both my boys dance too - and I'm old and fat and have more-or-less run out of damns to give. Calling the class "girls" or "ladies" is something you're just going to have to deal with, I'm afraid. Think of it as penance for every mixed group called "guys". (I do cough occasionally, though our main teacher is pretty good about it.) You're going to feel silly in ballet gear for a while. It wears off. Soon you'll find yourself up a ladder in tights while checking the video for a show and you won't notice until the crowds start backing away. :-) I'd be inclined to persevere with that second class - a bit of giggling is better than outright hostility! - they'll get used to you after a few weeks,. Give it six weeks, at least - that's my rule of thumb for stopping feeling like at idiot at something new anyway. Or see what the third one is like.

1. Enjoy it, let them enjoy it, see where it goes. 2. Have a portable hobby - read, knit, whatever* - or sort out a portable way to get some work done. There always seems to be a lot of sitting around to do for the parents and you don't get those hours back. (Or find studios with handy coffee shops, this works too.) * I've got the other parents at our place acclimated to me finding a corner and doing things like tai chi, karate and ballet practice, but you don't have to go that far. :-)

The ones who are paranoid are quiet likely the ones who *would* think of poaching!

We have, on occasion, caught what one can only describe as "hungry" looks from other local ballet teachers when they realise that our teacher has boys in her school so I can understand a little paranoia, but it's still disgraceful and cruel.

That's despicable: not the first time I've heard of behaviour like that and I'm pretty new to the ballet world.

How many summer schools are kids doing? Are we talking a week or two or spending their whole holidays dancing hard?

Yes, I'm trying to plan a quick run to London with the 8 year old and much though I love Fille, he's seen it on stage in POB and on screen and DVD recently so it seems like a bad use of resources to travel to see it rather than something new.

<potters around Amazon for a while> Ah, there are two types of slow cooker - faster ones (like the one I have) and really slow ones, which take much longer to do any thing but have very low input.

Unless it's very hot out a cool bag with frozen stuff in it will be fine. In the good old days we all used to walk/take the bus to and from the shops with our frozen products for at least that long. Put the sensitive stuff (ice cream, for example) in the centre and put stuff like frozen peas/carrots on top. The trick is to mass the frozen packages together so they keep each other cool. "Nutrition for the Dancer" is pretty good, (and available second hand from Amazon.de for €10), but it does expect you to be able to cook. First thing: most of the conversation about organic/fresh/blah-de-blah food is irrelevant here. You can't afford it, you can't afford wastage, you can't afford the middle class angst that is associated with a it - better taste and minor tweaking of nutrients isn't your problem. So ignore it. Frozen is fine, get some basic fresh fruit in small quantities and that'll do. Some fresh salads would be nice to have too. Slow cooking sounds like a good idea, but the energy cost can be a problem if you're really tight for money. Don't drain the fat off meat - it contributes flavour and calories you can't afford to waste - you paid for that fat! Just make sure there's lots of veg to soak it up. Something like a bolognaise should be mostly tomatoes, celery and carrots. The point of a lot of that sort of peasant cooking is to stretch out expensive meat (bolognaise was originally a dish made with leftovers) with cheap vegetables and make the fat palatable. My current bolognaise - which serves as a place to hide veg for a 5 year old and an 8 year old - is probably 3/4 vegetables by volume and 1/4 meat. Make a big batch of that, serve with a sensible portion of pasta or rice or bread and you're doing pretty well. Don't despise things like frozen fish either. A couple of fish fingers, a tin of peas and some bread isn't a bad meal. If you want detailed advice, recipes etc, feel free to ask here or PM me. I still remember teaching myself to cook as a teenager.