Wasps and Babies
Charles and I were invited to a tango party in south London this afternoon. I was a little bit nervous about going. I dithered about it for ages the night before, and then again when I woke up in the morning, and very nearly chickened out altogether. I’m never good in social, chit-chatty situations. I become frozen up with shyness and go into ‘awkward’ mode where I sit in a corner examining my shoelaces and trying to pretend I don’t exist. (God, I’m such fun!) However, I seem to be becoming a bit of a hermit lately, so I kicked myself up the bum and sternly told myself to get out there and talk to some people for once.
Decision made, off we went. We had a good drive to south London. The sun was unexpectedly shining, there was little traffic, it was very pleasant. We parked the car and found the house where the party was being held. Up the footpath we went. Charles rang the doorbell and quickly backed away, pushing me in front of him.
“You go first.”
“No way, you go first!” I scuttled around behind him again.
“It might not be the right house.”
“I know, that's why you have to go first, I’m a wuss!”
(We’re so grown up!)
He was the one in front as the door opened (ha!) and we were ushered down a long, mirrored hallway and into the kitchen. My eyes immediately skipped past all the people and alighted on a huge spread of food. Mmm! It all looked droolingly gorgeous – strange cheeses, sliced pears, various types of bread, huge bowls containing salads of every description – foodstuffs that it wouldn’t have occurred to me to put with each other, such as aubergine, courgette and roasted tomato salad. I could feel myself salivating wildly! I suddenly decided that there is actually an advantage to not really knowing many people at a party – you don’t have to say hello to anybody and you can just dive straight into the grub! Wahey – piggy heaven! However, after managing to grab a plate and fork, my cunning plan was thwarted by the fact that the kitchen was quite narrow and, whichever way I dodged and ducked, there was always some large bloke in between me and the food. Crap! In the end I had to patiently chew on some bread and houmous, which were the only items I could reach, until Charles had finished saying all his hellos (unlike me, he actually speaks to people!) – and he pushed a swathe through the crowd for us to move down the kitchen to the rest of the food and the garden.
Neither of us had realised that it was going to be a tango party. When two of the men started slotting wooden boards together in the garden to make a floor to dance on, we both looked at each other – we hadn’t brought our tango shoes! Oh no! Charles was in sandals, I was in sandals. Everyone else seemed to be better prepared and people began appearing outside shod variously in dance trainers and high heels.
The first couple to begin dancing were really good and we happily settled down to watch them. Not so happy, though, was the woman’s little son who must have been about 2 years old. He looked on in horror. What on earth was his mother doing leaving him alone at the side of the garden in order to go and do strange bodily things with this strange man?! It just wasn’t right!
“Mummeeee!” he wailed.
Mummy ignored him. She was enjoying her dance!
“Mummeee! Mummeee!”
Very fittingly, the singer on the record was crooning something in Spanish that sounded like ‘mommy’ so they had quite a duet going on. Another couple began dancing too.
“Mummeeeeee!”
In his distress the little boy started to toddle onto the wooden floor and was in danger of being mowed down by the dancers, so Charles very sensibly picked him up and sat him on his knee. This seemed to calm him down a bit. Eventually Mummy finished her dance and went off in search of a drink, so the little boy slid off Charles' knee to follow her, obviously very relieved that his mother was acting normally once more.
But, oh no – much to his dismay, she was out again a few minutes later with another partner, and again left him at the edge of the dance floor.
“Mummeee!” he wailed in disbelief.
Charles had by now wandered off to talk to someone, so this time I proffered my own lap and gave the little boy a cuddle whilst he looked on at the dancing. He settled down again immediately, but - hmmm, a child on my lap? Not a good idea! I’m so broody at the moment that all anyone has to do is point a small child in my direction and I'm guaranteed to end up running to the nearest loo to have a cry...
Sure enough, I could feel my throat tightening and my eyes filling up. Oh gawd, don't cry now you silly bat! I had visions of suddenly finding myself the centre of a concerned group of party guests, all patting my hands, clucking, and passing me tissues, whilst they tried to find out what dreadful thing was upsetting me - and I was sure that pointing at the little boy and squeaking, "It's a baybeee!" would just leave everyone thoroughly confused!
Sniff, gulp. How to distract myself… how to distract myself…
Distraction came in the form of a wasp up my skirt! When I felt the tickly insect feet crawling up my thigh I almost launched the poor child across the garden! Luckily he landed the right way up (albeit with a loud thump) and he ran off into the kitchen in search of someone less freaky whilst I frantically flapped my clothes about to try and get the wasp to come out. I have a wasp phobia so, when I say ‘frantically’, that is a weeny bit of an understatement. Jiggling about like a hula dancer on speed, I shrieked, "There's a wasp up my skirt! Ooooeee, there’s a wasp up my skirt!”
Everyone looked at me as though I was slightly bonkers.
“A wasp? Oh that's alright,” said someone, calmly.
Alright??! No it bloody isn't ALRIGHT, it's a WASP!! And it's just an inch away from my lady-bits!!! I flapped some more and the wasp fell out of my skirt and onto the patio, then flew off looking somewhat dazed.
Phroo, adventure over! That was scary! I was very wary of wasps for the rest of the afternoon. I sat there clutching my skirt tightly around my legs to make sure there would be no gaps for exploratory insects, every hair on my body twangingly alert for the slightest sign of another little waspy footstep or a little waspy breath.
In spite of the endless swarms of killer wasps that kept trying to land on me, and in spite of our inappropriate footwear, Charles and I managed to have a few nice dances together. I’ve been having a break from tango lately as I found I just wasn’t enjoying it in the way that I used to. I had begun to dread the Friday milongas coming around instead of looking forward to them and, when my calf muscle went ping and detached itself whilst I was running in Richmond Park one day, followed soon afterwards by someone spiking my foot with their stiletto heel during the Tango Extravaganza, which left me with broken foot bones, I decided that enough was enough - I just wasn’t meant to be tangoing right now and it was time for a break!
Today though, for the first time in ages, I actually enjoyed dancing! Charles danced in his socks, I danced in my sandals; we tripped over the joins in the boards or fell off the edge of the floor; we dodged the crab apple tree and the wasps – but none of that mattered, it was all just a really nice experience! I’m thinking now that maybe my tango break should come to an end soon. Perhaps I just need to find a way of making tango fun again? How I do that I’m not quite sure yet, but watch this space!
