Once again I’ve fallen behind with my blogging and I have a couple of things to talk about now, so I’ll start with the most recent, which was last night.

Last week at my tango lesson, Ale told me he was doing an exhibition for the public at the Buenos Aires City Legislature building and that he was very nervous because he’d never done anything like this before. So Lina and I said we would go along to support him.

I’ve been in the Legislatura before, and while the room they use is beautiful, it’s quite small and we wanted to get good seats, so I arrived almost an hour in advance. But my patience was rewarded as we had seats in the front row.

The music was anchored by a well known tango singer called Mirta Godoy. She sang one by herself first, and then was part of the accompaniment for the dancing.

As a side note, some tango dancers from Scotland were there. I had actually met them at the milonga on Wednesday night. The main couple run a tango school in Paisley, just a little outside Glasgow, and they had a party of 15 with them from all over Scotland for a tango-based holiday in Buenos Aires. They had been invited as guests to this performance.

There were two other couples who danced. One was Ale and his partner, Sara, who is a performance tango dancer. I had thought that she and Ale had danced together for years, but it turned out this was their first time! They danced beautifully together though, and at this morning’s lesson Ale was teaching me some of Sara’s moves!

There was another couple, but honestly I wasn’t impressed by them. Without meaning to be immodest, I think I dance better than the woman, and Ale told me the same thing this morning.

Finally, a live orchestra played for a general milonga. Lina and I didn’t stay for that, preferring to go for a bite to eat after. It was a new experience and a lovely evening, and we were both proud to tell the people around us that Ale was our teacher! When you watch the video, I think you’ll agree they were the best!

The first thing we do when the painting stage starts is what is known as the plano—just a flat fill of colour following the chalk shapes I showed you last week. By the way, someone asked if the chalk marks don’t get rubbed away, and they do. But you just have to be careful to keep enough of the shape to follow with the first coat.

I started with the red and then added the ochre. I am hoping that when I get all the shading and highlighting done it will have a goldish look to it. I want my dragon fiery!

It needed several coats to stop the black from shining through, so it took me the whole lesson time—90 minutes—to do these two stages!

The posts that update you on my Fileteado efforts are always popular, so here’s the scoop on my dragon. I posted the first pencil drawing on paper a couple of weeks ago.

First, I had to redraw the whole thing, freehand, but this time onto tracing paper—I posted that one a couple of weeks ago here. Next, I used a stick of white chalk to rub over the whole thing. Third, I turned it face down onto the board (already painted black by the teacher). Then I drew over the outline in pencil, which is what you see here.

And when I took the tracing paper off, this is what was on the board! So, using this powdery outline, next week I will begin the painting.

I love dragons, and I’m really enjoying doing this one. I think I’ve decided on the colour, but you’ll have to wait till my next update to see what it is!

Last night a bunch of us went to an interesting event, called Musica de Cine. It was a live orchestra and several choirs performing movie music.

It was held in a very posh school called Escuela del Salvador, and I took a quick shot of the auditorium — very Harry Potter I thought!

What they did was project a montage from each movie on a screen above the platform, while the live music was going on below. Very effective.

The movies were all old ones (maybe the copyright is cheaper!) but they were all ones with big, dramatic soundtracks and the sound quality did them justice. I’d go to something like this again.

This morning coming home from the cafe through the local plaza, I saw this lovely tree with bunches of red blossoms. It looked beautiful against the background of a smart building.

I’d like to tell you what it is, because it seemed a sure sign of spring, but I can’t seem to find out. I thought it was a lopacho tree, or some of the chicas suggested a Santa Rita. All I can tell you is it’s one of the red ones and it’s lovely!

Speaking of spring, the weather gods are laughing at Buenos Aires this year. By the end of October we should be well into spring weather, but this year the whole month has been below normal temperature — although bright and sunny most days.

On Friday it was so hot we were all scrambling to find something summery to wear, but yesterday was freezing! Hopefully it will soon settle down into the summer we’re all waiting for.

My friend Gillian is a special kind of coach. She does teach English to Spanish speakers, but she goes further by helping them understand English customs and social norms. This helps them enormously if they are learning English for travel or business purposes.

She asked me to join her and three of her students for lunch last week, because they were interested in two things: Scotland and my Scottish accent! We had a lovely time.

Here’s the photo Gillian took of us. I was tempted to take myself out of the photo as it doesn’t do a thing for me, but what the heck. We can’t always look our best!

Here is the next stage of my dragon piece. Since the teacher and I were happy with my first drawing, then I had to draw it all over again, this time on tracing paper ready for the next stage which I will do next week.

My nephew David in Scotland is in business as a building contractor, TDW Joinery Services. His wee boy, Denver, now has a matching jacket so that he can go to work helping Daddy! How cute is that!

One of the milongas I go to has theme nights, and last night it was black and silver. I wore a silvery lace top over a black and silver camisole. As you can see from the photo, I wore one black earring and one silver. But what you can’t see are my shoes. I have two pairs exactly the same, but one pair is black and the other silver — so I wore one of each! It was fun.

My friend Cliff sent me a link to an article in today’s Washington Post about the state of tango in Buenos Aires, how the industry suffered during the pandemia and how it’s coming back now.

Club Gricel, which is featured in the story, is the milonga I go to on Monday nights with my friend Lina and our teacher, Ale. The story was shot on a Sunday though, so we’re not in it!

You might find the story interesting. Here’s the link: https://wapo.st/3VsTPpk