Project 52 2026 week 12 and 13

A double week of Project 52 this week because I was away last weekend. It’s been a busy couple of weeks with work, dancing, school, and now into Easter, as well as a few days off. Here’s my week 12 and 13 of Project 52.

With the arrival of April, now it’s time to get all my finances sorted I hate end of financial year sorting out any overhanging blogging costs, and banking stuff, as well as having to work out transferring ISAs and savings to better rates. But I did start saving each month for each page I’d read, so that’s over £620 I’ve saved in the year which is a nice bonus (to use for my self assessment tax owed I should think).

Week 12

Sunday – had a lie in as I’ve been waking around 5.10am, then again an hour later. I think it’s due to the lighter mornings (earlier bedtimes needed to compensate). Was later getting to M&S for bread than I usually am, but was still parked, in, queued for 10 mins for the checkouts and driving out again by 11.03. Exciting that from next weekend they’re changing to 10.30 opening on Sundays, which means less hanging around waiting for various shops to open. 

Rest of the day was a lazy one, other than multiple washing/hanging up of clothes. Watched some of the British gymnastics, then caught up with some Lincoln Lawyer series 3.

Monday – day off work, so I decided to renew my Blenheim Palace pass and see the new John Vanburgh exhibition there. I wasn’t going to bother renewing this year, but they offered me 20% off so it was worth doing. The exhibition was interesting and worth seeing. It’s always nice having a wander, especially when it’s sunny and not too busy.

Tuesday – back at work and in the office. Line dancing in the evening which was good. Everyone was getting excited about the approaching weekender.

Wednesday – work and then dancing. It’s a frustrating class because so many of them do another class with them on Fridays and socials, which means they might only go through a teach properly once on Wednesdays, assuming everyone’s picked it up through the other session. I feel like I don’t really get enough teaching time. Annoying when I’m paying to be taught, not sit out and having to learn them at home to catch up. 

Thursday –  busy work day getting bits done before I was off again. No dancing that evening so it was nice to relax in front of the tv, after packing for the weekend.

Friday – my first line dance weekend. I was travelling up with a friend, so she picked me up en route, and we took a leisurely drive up to Scarborough. Luckily the traffic was fine, and the weather ended up really nice and sunny. We checked in then had a bit of a walk down to the promenade before catching the funicular railway back up to the top of the hill to get prepared for dinner and dancing.

The hotel was a gorgeous Victorian design, and I was lucky with my room as it was clean. But so many people had filthy rooms, and the corridors weren’t cleaned during the time we were there with obviously items left having not been removed. So many people complained but they didn’t seem to care, and evidently housekeeping only clean the rooms!. Trip Advisor review going up soon as it was disgusting. 

Buffet dinner was good, nice to get to know other people in the group better, and first night social dancing was good.

Saturday – breakfast was ok in the hotel, but nothing special. Then workshop for 3 hours, learning 4 dances and some social dancing. We had the afternoon free so a couple of us headed for a walk round to the harbour and find somewhere for lunch. We also had a nosy in the indoor market hall and market vaults. 

Then headed back to our hotel rooms to rest before the evening. I had a snooze sitting in my chair, but woken a couple of times by the Orange March going back and forth right under my side of the hotel. Packed before going to dinner, then quick change (animal print theme) and off to the social in the ballroom. Nice evening dancing.

Week 13

Sunday – final day of the line dance weekend, so early breakfast, then dance workshop again in the morning. My legs were aching but in a good way. 3 more dances learnt – I just hope we go over some in class or at least get to practice them at socials otherwise I’ll forget them.

We left just after 1, stopped for lunch at a garden centre before we hit the motorway, then made good time back home.  Got in just after 5.30, so it was a long weekend (but much more chilled than the old Ceroc dance weekenders I used to go on which were Friday to early hours of Mondays with full days and nights of dancing if you wanted!).

Monday – first day of Easter holidays. N is definitely a proper teenager now, sleeping in til later. He was out on the farm the rest of the day though. I was back at work.

Tuesday – in the office and it was pretty busy so had a nice lunch sitting with quite a few others rather than just by myself or with a couple of us. After work I went to see Here and Now musical, the Steps inspired show. It improved as the show went on, the songs were great to reminisce, and the singing was brilliant (after the opening song was a bit iffy). But the plot was a bit rubbish. Not one I’d see again, but I did enjoy it.

Tesco petrol station was closed on the way home, so that meant I’d have to make a separate journey into town to get petrol another day.

Wednesday – N wanted to practice hot cross buns, so we went early into Sainsbury’s to get ingredients, and petrol. Only half of the pumps had fuel which is unusual for them, but good to get filled without any stress. N had a dentist appointment early, then I was working. 

Went line dancing in the evening. One of the Banbury dancers came along to try out the improvers class. It’s always nice to have someone to compare notes with. I didn’t dance much in the intermediate class, as there’s so many dances I just don’t know yet. 

Thursday – final work day before Easter. Line dancing wasn’t as busy as it has been. No new beginners, but it feels like everything’s quite basic in the improvers class compared with how it used to be. Most others don’t remember the dances we’ve learnt, so it feels like we’re just doing lots of basic high beginner level or easy improver dances and not going over all the ones we’ve already learnt to keep them going. I really couldn’t teach, it would drive me nuts.

Friday – Good Friday. Early Tesco shop arrived, then off to the bakery and farm shop for food for the weekend. My brother popped round. Felt a bit sicky after dinner. I think because I’d had quite a late lunch and had eaten quite a lot of Thursday leftovers, then dinner maybe came a bit fast for me. Oops. I quite often don’t eat in the evenings either if I’m dancing, so sometimes I just don’t feel like a proper dinner but want to have a family meal.

Saturday – needed a couple of bits and bobs I’d not ordered in my food shop as they were super expensive in Tesco, then forgot to pick up yesterday (Countrylife butter!). Also picked up a nice pork pie to have with jackets and salad, as what I’d planned for dinner didn’t work out with revised plans for Sunday. Made raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake, did 2 loads of washing, then relaxed catching up with some of the ice skating from the Worlds, and watching Oxford women win their boat race. We won’t mention the men’s race though.

No new posts this week.

Things I’ve enjoyed this fortnight:

• Scarborough and the dance weekender, lots of dancing and socialising, and no cooking required!
• Getting out and about, with days off
• Getting to know people at dancing more.

Things I’m grateful for:

• Having a lift from a friend for the dance weekend. I’m usually the one driving which I love, but it was nice to go with someone who knew what they were doing
• Sitting in a short row next to young people in the theatre who were happy to stay in their seats during the interval, and didn’t take hours putting on jackets to leave after the show.
• Having changed my car to petrol, and avoiding most of the stress of refilling my car because our town seems to have gone nuts with fuel since the Iran/US issues started. No other towns near us seem to have the same issues.