Soldiering on

Victoria's dance school competition was today, and unfortunately she woke up with a terrible pain in the neck. (I'm resisting the temptation to make any quips about that ;)

It was very stiff and made any sort of movement quite painful, but she's been practising for this for a long time and she was determined to carry on. Even I could see that her movements on stage were less fluid than usual, but with the help of a liberal spraying of deep heat (it wouldn't surprise me if the adjudicator could smell it!) and a dose of neurofen, she put enormous effort and commitment into her dances and smiled through every performance. (I wasn't backstage, but heard afterwards that a couple of times she came off stage in tears of pain.)

Her commitment paid off. She won the modern and ballet sections, and she and a friend were placed first in the duet section for a wonderful song and tap dance routine of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes". She also got the award for the highest aggregate mark of the day.

This is the ballet trophy. (Apologies for the product placement - other heat therapy / topical analgesic products are no doubt available!) If you look closely, you may be able to see that this isn't the first year she's won it :)