Xmas came early

Being the humbug that I am I never look forward to Xmas but yesterday I started to see things a little differently. Up until last year I hadn't bothered with Xmas decorations but my husband had persuaded me to buy a tree, I bought a lovely pot grown tree which I then re-potted and the tree has now spent a year outside only to return to the front room last night. Not only did my husband take on the job of decorating said tree he also arrived in the front room in a full Santa costume. We had a fun evening and I felt that lovely warm wintry feeling, the front room glowed with candles and Xmas lights and I had Santa sat next to me on the sofa! Even my psychotic cat chilled out!

Last week included the discovery of a new pole trick - pictures to follow. The pole trick came about after the lovely Amytree suggested I try a cradle invert to brass monkey! At first I suggested the move may be impossible but couldn't resist the temptation to try it anyway. I failed to achieve the brass monkey but managed to get into a position that my body has never adopted before, Jo said that the trick looked good but there was one major flaw - I couldn't get out of the trick! It seemed the only possible way to remove oneself from said pole was to just fall off! I will keep working on the new trick until I find a nice graceful way of releasing my body from the pole. The trick does result in two fantastic bruises - one on the forearm and one on the back of the calf muscle!

On Friday Jo (see picture of Jo holding bread rolls!) & I ventured to Torquay in the search for a new venue for our Kelly's fitness pole dancing, despite an extensive search we failed to find anywhere but we did manage to find the Tudor Rose tea rooms so we could stop for some very tasty French Onion soup -I enjoyed the seafront lunch and imagined that perhaps at some point the wonderful Agatha Christie would have been dining in similar fashion!

I noticed in yesterdays Herald an article about fundraising for the fantastic animal Charity -Woodside, I wanted to mention how great Woodside are but also to have a little whinge at the RSPCA. In the last 5 years I have contacted the RSPCA on 3 separate occasions and on each occasion they have been unhelpful and have failed to respond to 2 reports of animal suffering, the third contact was when I found a live 4 foot snake in my back garden - neither the RSPCA or the Police were able to help in any way and so the snake was left to eat its way through many of my baby cockatiels before we managed to capture it, bear in mind that both the police and the RSPCA had no idea whether this snake was harmful or not. I must also mention that one call to the RSPCA involved holding for 22 mins before being cut off, as you can imagine when you have a live 4 foot snake wondering around your back garden you really want to speak to someone who can help. One rep from the RSPCA said not to worry as the animal would die overnight due to the cold, this did not reassure me and the result was that is was nearly 18 months before my husband was able to catch the snake during which time it had not only eaten several more cockatiels but had also grown by over a foot! My point is that if you want to support an animal charity then please pick a local charity such as Woodside and not the RSPCA.

I am still looking for a designated charity for the year but will also donate £40 to Woodside to sponsor an animal - I will look forward to posting pictures of the art of dance new sponsored creature! Please visit the woodside sponsorship page and let me know which animal you think the art of dance should sponsor!

I did find a very amusing Burlesque video which I have just uploaded to Sue's blog for any of you who may be interested.

Tomorrow I am off to London, I will explain all about that later this week!

Stay Healthy,

Sam x