The Ngaio Scottish Country Dance Club celebrated their Annual Dance on 14 May, the first in the Wellington Region’s dancing calendar for 2022. Appropriately, the dance was in the Ngaio Town Hall, which club members had decorated with fresh greenery and tartan. A nice touch was the tartan banners hung round the walls, each labelled to show the clan whose tartan was on display.
In spite of Covid, inflation and all our other problems there was a great turnout, with six sets on the floor and lots of Johnsonville members in attendance. Melva Waite MC’d with her usual skill and the wonderful music was played for us by Aileen Logie, Hilary Ferral and Jason Morris.
The programme was made up of a host of familiar dances. Fortunately Rod had taught us more than half of them, as they were briefed, not walked. Everyone seemed to go well. My favourite was A Trip to Bavaria, with its music that sounds like a German band. It must have been popular with a lot of people because Melva let us do it twice.
It was a full programme with ten dances to go through before teatime. I staggered home with very sore feet when teatime came around but I had had a great night’s dancing. Most people went right through to the end.
Ngaio had a late start to their dancing year but they put on a splendid night and made us all feel very welcome.
The photos give an idea of the event. It’s not easy taking photos at a dance – when you get to fourth place in the set you’ve only 32 bars to whip your phone out of your sporran, glad a few pictures, put it away and be ready to be the third couple. In jig or reel time that feels like no time at all.
Robert Vale
19 May 2022
Photos: Robert Vale
