Backstage at the Ballet

I enjoy drawing, I hope that much is clear. I look at the world and I'm inspired to capture the moment in a sketch, but then I've told you this before. However, it took my sketch-a-day challenge to make me pick up a pen more regularly, and sometimes it's a challenge to find the time.

Unlike dancing.

When people ask me what I do I hesitate to answer. I know they mean my job, but being an English teacher doesn't come close to defining me - my role as as a mother and a wife take up far more of my time. I'll often tell them about this website, and my sketching and my aspirations to illustrate books and future events.

But I'm never really brave enough to speak aloud the way I really see myself. So here, in the privacy of my blog - which is like the inside of my mind, only neater and better organised, I shall finally reveal the truth.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a dancer. When music plays, the rhythm takes over like some demented puppet master. Hips, toes, fingers, head, feet, arms, body, soul, I move. And when there is no music outside my head, it still finds a way to trickle from my memory and I dance on.

I dance in my classroom, I dance as I cook, I dance when I tuck my girls in at night. You think I exaggerate, ask my family, they will tell you tales of toe-curling embarrassment. Last week, at a friend's wedding, I was cartwheeling, bare-foot through puddles under fairy lights. My idea of heaven. And once a week I get to dance with my friends at Adult Ballet. I love this class so much! I do not claim to be technically brilliant, I just feel like I am home.

Soon, it will be show-time! Which brings me back to the title of this post: Backstage at the Ballet. This weekend, backstage at the dress-rehearsal, I married two of my loves, sketching some of my favourite costumes for the show. So I got there in the end; see what a merry dance I led you on...