On Saturday afternoon a few of us went up to our favourite people-watching haunt, La Biela. As on other occasions, there was a professional tango dancing couple doing their thing. I asked the guy, Gustavo, if he was willing to dance with us and he said of course. So Lina and I had a go.

A word of explanation. The word milonga has two meanings. It’s the place where you go to dance tango, but it’s also a dance in its own right, or at least a variation of tango. While tango tends to be quite slow and dramatic, and usually melancholy, milonga is a faster happier dance. It’s also quite tricky. When I asked Gustavo if we could dance milonga, he suggested we dance a tango first—Lina and I agreed that he wanted to be sure I could keep up first before he risked milonga! Anyway, I must have passed his test, because he was happy to lead me in a fun, upbeat milonga too.

As I told him Lina was a better dancer than I am, having danced tango much longer, he just went straight into the milonga with her.

We were both ecstatic about the whole thing. We are missing tango so desperately we are considering going up there every weekend and giving him a big tip just to dance with us!

I hope you enjoy our videos—thanks to Jayne for taking them!