Happy New Year everyone.

For the Husband and I the actual New Year was quiet – just the two of us, in fact. Both the Stepdaughter and Stepson were spending the evening with their own friends – which was as it should be, given that they are 26 and 22 respectively and have their own lives.

Since then we’ve been waiting for the bitter cold weather to go as it has been too cold to leave the house for any length of time. The cold weather shows no sign of dissipating – we woke this morning to snow that has shown no sign of disappearing all day.

I’ve not mentioned though that we are having a quiet time. Because we are not. Before Christmas the Husband taught two evenings of his music classes on Hollywood musicals of the 30s and 40s, playing song and dance numbers to demonstrate the best of each period. Tomorrow evening he is doing Hollywood Musicals of the 50s and is busy going through all the DVDs of Musicals of the period that we own to work out what to include and what, reluctantly, to exclude. We have a lot of Musicals on DVD. So plugged into our television are currently two DVD players, one DVD recorder and two video players – so we now have cables all over the carpet we are trying not to fall over.

I love the film musicals of the period and have a passion for the music. So whenever he plays – over and over again – songs and dance numbers from the Bandwagon, Silk Stockings, GiGi, Annie Get Your Gun, Calamity Jane, 7 Brides for 7 Brothers and High Society I love listening and watching them. However, into every life a little rain must fall and some of the films from the period, especially Singing in the Rain and An American in Paris, I am less than enthusiastic about or perhaps it is just the one “Actor” in them. Gene Kelly has never been a favourite of mine. He is a good dancer, I fully admit, but I’ve never thought his voice the strongest and his acting, well let’s face it, his overacting, is terrible. I’ve always preferred Fred Astaire whose dancing, singing and sheer professionalism in every film he has appeared in to my mind far exceeds Gene Kelly’s.

Tomorrow evening the Husband undertakes his class. And then he returns all of the electronics back to their usual places. Tonight, of course, we pack up all the Christmas decorations away for another 11 months. And then the household returns to normal for the new year.