Walk like an Egyptian
The integrated section of the DVD not only had me putting the different steps together but also with movement - help!!!
As I may or may not have mentioned before the kind of belly dancing that I am learning is Egyptian, I am not sure what exactly the difference between Egyptian and other forms of belly dance is but my mate Lelia (the woman on the DVD) says that Egyptian belly dance you keep your leg straight i.e. don''t really bend your knees.
I therefore got excited when there was a section on the disc call the Egyptian walk - how exciting- alas it was not what I expected, with the funky hand moves and bobbing your head. You actually had to walk whilst popping your hip up and down, maybe I should walk like that next time I go into town. Like Joey says on Friends ( the pearl of all wisdom) maybe I need a new walk.
The last lesson in the integrated section was moving whilst doing hip circles/figure eights and all that jazz, if your confused right now don't worry, so was I. Basically when your doing a circle, when your weight is on the opposite side you move your leg, so when your in the right section of the circle you move your left leg (luckily this is not the way it was explained to me as seeing as telling my right from left is rather challenging.)
Balance comes in handy when you have to turn, side stepping and hip circling at the same time, its like turning on one leg.....and she topples over . Fortunately for me and unfortunately for any furniture (or any bunny) that gets in the way I now get to do full on dances- PEOPLE BEWARE!!!
Maybe I should get a costume?
Friday, 26 August 2011
Monday, 15 August 2011
feeling snakey- belly dancing part 1
Feeling snakey
I thought it would be easier, cheaper and less scarring to others if I learnt to belly dance via DVD, hence afternoons spent in front of the telly popping and locking.
Firstly it must be learnt that you must clean the frosting out of the bowl - yes this woman is for real. I am scraping metaphorical frosting out of metaphorical bowls and picking up metaphorical basketballs....erm ok then.
My arms have to be snakey, its all about the serpentine y'all!
The next lesson to be learnt (actually its the third and fourth but whose counting) is how to pop your hip, then to roll it, then both together. Starting to get a tad confuzzled right about now. I also had the pleasure nay the privilege of learning hip circles. Fun times, fun times, this where we are grateful for only putting the DVD on when no one else is in the house.
At the moment shimmies are the bane of my life, not only do I have to shimmy ( moving my knees back and forth really really fast) but I also have to do hip circles at the same time. I know that as a women I'm supposed to be good at multi-tasking and all that but this is really taking the biscuit.
The next two steps that we learn on this magical mystery tour are camels and horses- incredibly yes they are indeed called camels and horses. This introduces footwork oh dear god!!
This concludes the basic section, if this is basic, I dread to think what comes next.........t.b.c...
I thought it would be easier, cheaper and less scarring to others if I learnt to belly dance via DVD, hence afternoons spent in front of the telly popping and locking.
Firstly it must be learnt that you must clean the frosting out of the bowl - yes this woman is for real. I am scraping metaphorical frosting out of metaphorical bowls and picking up metaphorical basketballs....erm ok then.
My arms have to be snakey, its all about the serpentine y'all!
The next lesson to be learnt (actually its the third and fourth but whose counting) is how to pop your hip, then to roll it, then both together. Starting to get a tad confuzzled right about now. I also had the pleasure nay the privilege of learning hip circles. Fun times, fun times, this where we are grateful for only putting the DVD on when no one else is in the house.
At the moment shimmies are the bane of my life, not only do I have to shimmy ( moving my knees back and forth really really fast) but I also have to do hip circles at the same time. I know that as a women I'm supposed to be good at multi-tasking and all that but this is really taking the biscuit.
The next two steps that we learn on this magical mystery tour are camels and horses- incredibly yes they are indeed called camels and horses. This introduces footwork oh dear god!!
This concludes the basic section, if this is basic, I dread to think what comes next.........t.b.c...
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
they violated my face! - number 12
fskdhfjejfktlldjd - actually it didn't hurt that much
The brow bar of debenhams was the host of my torture and what fun it was. I have been told on occasion that I have a mono brow so when I rang the sister she sighed a sigh of relief "finally"
The first problem we encountered was that I couldn't understand what the women was saying to me, she had to show me through gestures , no your hand doesn't go there, hold the skin taut and......ouchy
They violated my face and I had to pay for the privilege, what madness is this!
The brow bar of debenhams was the host of my torture and what fun it was. I have been told on occasion that I have a mono brow so when I rang the sister she sighed a sigh of relief "finally"
The first problem we encountered was that I couldn't understand what the women was saying to me, she had to show me through gestures , no your hand doesn't go there, hold the skin taut and......ouchy
They violated my face and I had to pay for the privilege, what madness is this!
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
number 1 - the rag rug of doom
The packaging says easy.fun.quick. Five years begs to differ. Its more like a hard, fiddly, slow pain in the bum. Each row takes an average of about half an hour to complete thats without any mistakes. Trust me there were many, I wanted to shred it to pieces on multiple occasions
Monday, 18 July 2011
Rossogollas-10
Hands up who knows what Rossogollas actually are? Nope didn't think so. Rossogollas are a kind of Indian sweet -I think, made out of Chenna with nuts and then like boiled in syrup yeah its slightly bizarre.
Making Rossogollas was number 10 on my list so I set out to make the kitchen a mess- that was pretty much the only thing I managed to do as when I was separating the curds and whey through the tea towel lets just say the stuff went everywhere and I was covered in molten not-quite-cheese.
I am aware that when separating curds and whey, one should use muslin, not any old tea towel , so it would not come to too much of a surprise that my plan didn't exactly go to plan, meaning that the mixture was funneled through the towel multiple times, hence resulting more of the liquid to spill and leave me with truly cheesy jeans. The recipe said that by using 4 litres of milk, I would be able to make 30 rossogollas, yet as I didn't know how any of this was going to work I only used 1 litre of milk but only ended up with enough curd (or panneer as the Indians call it) for 3 Rossogollas -epic fail, so either I have ended up with incredibly curdy whey or I just failed. To make the panneer in chenna - if you want to know how that works- you add a tbsp of both flour and sugar, this is also where I added the nuts.
The syrup is basically sugar and water and some rosewater to taste. The Rossogollas are boiled for 10 minutes but this makes them soggy so I'm slightly confused as to what the point was but they are still yummy but just oddly textured....shame I only made 3.......
Making Rossogollas was number 10 on my list so I set out to make the kitchen a mess- that was pretty much the only thing I managed to do as when I was separating the curds and whey through the tea towel lets just say the stuff went everywhere and I was covered in molten not-quite-cheese.
I am aware that when separating curds and whey, one should use muslin, not any old tea towel , so it would not come to too much of a surprise that my plan didn't exactly go to plan, meaning that the mixture was funneled through the towel multiple times, hence resulting more of the liquid to spill and leave me with truly cheesy jeans. The recipe said that by using 4 litres of milk, I would be able to make 30 rossogollas, yet as I didn't know how any of this was going to work I only used 1 litre of milk but only ended up with enough curd (or panneer as the Indians call it) for 3 Rossogollas -epic fail, so either I have ended up with incredibly curdy whey or I just failed. To make the panneer in chenna - if you want to know how that works- you add a tbsp of both flour and sugar, this is also where I added the nuts.
The syrup is basically sugar and water and some rosewater to taste. The Rossogollas are boiled for 10 minutes but this makes them soggy so I'm slightly confused as to what the point was but they are still yummy but just oddly textured....shame I only made 3.......
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
number 6- everybody loves the post box
Me, being particularly clever have managed to leave a good proportion of my summer clothes in Bath- epic fail.So I needed to buy some new clothes for our trip to France. Luckily for me, I was able to coincide this with my goal to visit Durham.
At the end of school, people decided to go in either two directions. There were a few of us (me being one) who went to uni down South. Yet the majority of people went North, namely Durham.
I agreed to meet my other tweedle half for lunch. Fortunately for her my sense of direction is rather amazing (lol) and the conversation went something like this "where are you?"
"I'm on a bridge, near a church" -helpful
By some near miracle Sophie was able to find me and we went for an amiable lunch. Poor Soph had forgotten quite how weird I am when i started dancing along with my quiche. An hour was up too soon and Sophie ran off to meet her supervisor, she swears that he's an alcoholic as he mentioned to bring up gin in the conversation eight times in an hour - obsessive much *ahem*
This left me to do a spot of retail therapy although it did not quite go to plan as I entered the shop thinking - white trousers I need white linen trousers- and coming out with khaki cargo pants
.
After her meeting, I was taken to the palace green to see the cathedral like every good tourist should. Whilst tweedle dee looked for a trustworthy looking tourist to take a group photo, I got distracted by the bright red post box. Everybody loves post boxes right?
POSE!!!!
At the end of school, people decided to go in either two directions. There were a few of us (me being one) who went to uni down South. Yet the majority of people went North, namely Durham.
I agreed to meet my other tweedle half for lunch. Fortunately for her my sense of direction is rather amazing (lol) and the conversation went something like this "where are you?"
"I'm on a bridge, near a church" -helpful
By some near miracle Sophie was able to find me and we went for an amiable lunch. Poor Soph had forgotten quite how weird I am when i started dancing along with my quiche. An hour was up too soon and Sophie ran off to meet her supervisor, she swears that he's an alcoholic as he mentioned to bring up gin in the conversation eight times in an hour - obsessive much *ahem*
This left me to do a spot of retail therapy although it did not quite go to plan as I entered the shop thinking - white trousers I need white linen trousers- and coming out with khaki cargo pants
After her meeting, I was taken to the palace green to see the cathedral like every good tourist should. Whilst tweedle dee looked for a trustworthy looking tourist to take a group photo, I got distracted by the bright red post box. Everybody loves post boxes right?
POSE!!!!
Monday, 9 May 2011
number 5 -I need the toilet
The phrase "start as you intend to go on" springs to mind as Louise pulls into our drive half an hour late, in true Schneider style.The drive down normally takes 4 hours with no stops, this was however not the case this time as we were informed driving through Manchester that we were stopping at the services for a loo trip. After a brief stop, we set off again but less than 20 minutes later guess who needed the toilet again.And so the journey continued.
On Sunday we started the day with a trip to Beckford's Tower. The Bath Preservation Trust have got their sign posting down to a tee as we spent a good while figuring out where the entrance was.
With its panoramic views of the city this seemed like a good introduction to the city. Not so much if your sense of direction is as dire as mine.
The tea house emporium was the next stop on our route, the customer service however left a lot to be desired as the girl behind the counter seemed irritated by our very presence answering many of our questions with monosyllabic answers as we went round smelling all the teas on offer.
The afternoon was spent at the fashion museum where, inspired by the royal wedding, we were able to look at how the wedding dress has developed as well as trying on corsets and crinolinesWe then ventured upstairs to look round the Assembly rooms where the elite came to party in the 18th century. Anyone for a wedding?
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