I hope everyone had a good Christmas and enjoyed yourselves. I did lots of nice things like going to the Panto and visiting Christmas lights. Before Christmas I went to the bowling group. We all wore our Christmas jumpers. Here is a picture of us all.

Alexandra

Robert comes to Bowling each month and this is what he said about it:

“I like bowling with Linda. Lyndsey or Matt take me. I meet lots of friends and we have drinks. My favourite is J2O Apple and Mango. I always get spares and strikes. It is good fun.”

Andrew joins our on line Pilates sessions which are held twice a week. He spoke to his mum Ros about what he likes about the Pilates session that he does with the teacher Marie.

Tell me about Pilates?

Pilates is good. It makes me feel fit, healthy and big muscles.

Which exercises do you do?

Lots! My favourites are stretching up high. Boxing and cat and cow.

Andrew what else would you like to tell people?

I like it. It makes me happy. I like lots of people to join in. I like chatting with Marie and friends at the beginning and end.

I’m nice and relaxed and calm after 5 minutes meditation at the end.

Mum likes to join in when she can.

If you would like to draw a picture, write an article, share a photograph, or tell us something exciting that has happened to you,  send it to nicky.ramsay@dsne.org.uk

We began our exciting weekend with a train trip to Elsetree and Borehamwood on Friday morning. We checked into our hotel on Friday evening, watched “It takes two” on tv, had a lovely meal together and planned how we would spend our day on Saturday.

We had to have a big lunch as you can’t have a meal once you get to the Strictly Studios. We chose rather delicious pizza! Then we got ready, Emily wore the beautiful dress she had made for her 30th birthday party, she received lots of compliments and did lots of twirls once we got to the studio.

We took a taxi to the studio then had to queue for about half an hour before we could go into the studio. Although it was cold everyone was very chatty in the queue so it was still fun. We then had to give our phones in and sit and wait in a big room until we could go into where the recording was going to be made. We had a drink and a little snack, while trying to spot famous people waiting with us, we saw Debbie McGee and the lovely Amy Dowden too.

We were taken into the studio we were in the back row behind the judge’s seats. We were surprised how small the audience was, and also that everything was so Christmassy. Then we discovered that they were going to film the introduction to the Christmas show so it all made sense! We saw all the Christmas celebrities do their opening dance, they did it twice and we were encouraged to clap and cheer. It was fabulous seeing all the dancers so close up, practicing little bits of the dances and chatting to each other.

Our next treat was to see Cher perform, she was amazing. She sang twice and we loved the dance the professionals did to her Christmas song.

We saw Tess and Claudia rehearsing, Claudia is even dafter when she’s not being filmed. We had to wait for the judges to change out of their Christmas outfits and into their Musicals night attire. Then the recording for the live show began.

Unfortunately Nigel had been injured so there were only 4 couples dancing but the dances were incredible. It was interesting watching all the scenery being changed around while the audience at home saw the videos about each couple. We booed and cheered the judge’s comments and it all whizzed by so quickly. Ellie was Emily’s favourite, dancing a quickstep a song from Beauty and the Beast, we absolutely loved it. We saw the first 40 of the series, Layton’s paso doble to a song from Moulin Rouge, we were on our feet cheering that!

After the live show ended there was still lots to watch. More Claudia and Tess practicing and recording all their bits for the “results show”, we heard the Fisherman’s friends sing and saw the professionals dance to a medley of songs from “My Fair Lady.” Some of the professionals were out on the dance floor for ages, joking with the compere and the crowd. Kai sang a little bit of an Elvis song and Grazio and Giovanni both sang too, not minding making fools of themselves. They seemed to be really having a good time. We had to wait for the judges to change again and heard the interviews of the celebrities as they talked about what dances they were going to do the following week.

We got the taxi back to our hotel at about 11pm very tired but still buzzing from such an exciting evening.

In November Sue led us in a Festive cake decorating workshop, we made penguin cakes. They all looked fantastic. Here are a few of the finished cakes.

Look out for lots of fun activities are happening this year. Dates will soon be out for art workshops, cake decorating, activity days and more.