Went to the Watussi gig at The Basement last night. SUCH fun.
Support was from a Peruvian band and a Brazilian samba group with a party spirit that warmed the place through.
Watussi were superb. I won’t pretend to know heaps about their back catalogue but they were passionate, fun and godammit those boys can even make percussion sexy. My favourite was the first encore number, they absolutely nailed it.

Ever since I got my VFFs I’ve wanted to take them on the Manly Scenic Walk, and since this weekend was a relatively quiet one on the LJ11 scale today was the day. After the usual procrastination it was time..
It was a beautiful day: clear, crisp, sunny and I was happy to see so many people out on the walk, it really is so beautiful. I’ve always enjoyed getting past Fairlight etc and actually hitting the bush tracks on the walk and that’s where I came in to …

Jess and I went to see Cat Empire at the Metro last night. There will be way smarter, cooler, less hungover people who can comment on the music and performance I’ll just tell you that it was an amazing gig with a lot of energy, and outstanding vocal and instrumental sounds.

Haven’t done many updates but that’s because I’ve been out ALL the time :)

It’s been a lot of 1, 2, 3 am finishes, I’ve met heaps of cool people, and, the best news – it’s really starting to come together. The lessons are great for bedding in basics, and building on the moves that I know. Plus it’s good to practice with the same people without reading a new lead. Also we do Rueda which is too much fun to even start talking about.
But the social dancing is where the magic is really happening. A couple of huge break throughs this week: this might seem like an odd thing to say at this stage, as in a bit late, but I felt like I got the rhythm better than ever before, it felt great. And, I was out one night and this guy who I see out all the time asked me to dance – this alone was an achievement to me cos he seems pretty advanced to me – but the best part was the we killed it on the dance floor.

Double rainbow (hope you can see it) across Sydney harbour.

Couple of nights camping just across from Palm Beach.

Gorgeous weather, some good wildlife and lovely scenery.

Lots of lazing around, a bush run and a dash’n'dodge when it started to rain.

OK, so I’m always banging on about how I could be alright at dancing if I had lessons. Enough jib jab, get on with it Jamesy…
So tonight I started lessons with Picante Latin Dance. I did the Intermediate 1 class which was great, covering the fundamentals of cuban salsa in detail and a good chance to practice rhythm, body movement and, yeah, nail the foundation steps.
But then I stayed for Intermediate 2. Now that was fun. We did heaps of wicked moves. These cool tap steps …

Bouncing fairweather cumulus across Pittwater river.

Popped over to Freshie for a surf this evening. It was gorgeous there – it was gorgeous along all of the north shor / northern beaches – and I piled into the ocean for my first non-wetsuit surf this season. Let’s say up front, it was still fresh, and evening may not have been the best time to trial this, but it was fine.
There were some smashing waves. Not heaps, just a few smashing ones.
I caught most of the ones I wanted to until my feet went so …

Going for a night time bush walk through Sydney National Parks with Jamie and Fernando.