Tuesday 16^th October

One or two small girls close to my heart are very keen to do ballet.  They dance round the house in full Pavlova mode and teach their Barbies to do grand jetées.  I love the idea of them trotting off in pink tutus, hair scraped back neatly, eyes alight with the joy of The Dance.  I am very much aware that all too soon they will be wanting to wear nothing but black…let the pink frilly moments last as long as possible!

One of the nicest of the ballet schools, from my investigations, is in North Hobart.  I know a few small girls who go there already.  They have a BIG concert every year – great excitement.  Last year they had some sort of toyshop theme.  Perfect – an opportunity for Madeline and Audrey and Beatrice et al to appear on stage in pink tutus surely??  But no…this particular group of pink girly girls were assigned their role in the toyshop extravaganza – they were to dance, in front of a big crowd, all dressed up as…Mr Potato Heads!  Bitter disappointment!  Some of the girls were fine with it, and were happy to be cutely attired in brown hessian sacks and sent out to delight the crowd.  Others refused to go out on stage at all. 

When I told my niece Jo, who did dance classes in Launceston for many years, she was horrified, and said, It was bad enough being The Toy Soldier instead of The Fairy or The Bride Doll!  [coveted roles, of course]  But Mr Potato Head – mortifying!