Epic

Today has been quite simply epic. It's been one of Katie's favourite days, ever. It's been one of my favourite days as Katie's mama, ever. Just brilliant.

She woke up early. We spent an hour doing some school homework, writing about Swan Lake, and planning for an "imagine you were there" assignment. She ate a huge breakfast. She played the piano, showered, dressed in her favourite dress, ate second breakfast with aunty Kay and uncle Chris. We then got a lift to the tube station.

We arrived at South Kensington. She was very excited from the second we saw signs for the Royal College of Music and the Royal Albert Hall, she nearly popped when we actually saw them.

She completely loved the Swan Lake workshop. The English National Ballet teacher was smitten with her in minutes, very quickly realising katie was the groups ballerina. She later asked me where she's training "as she's obviously got a very good teacher and a lot of natural talent!"  In the afternoon improvisation class she was fantastic. She was in a small group of her, a cello and a RCM oboe player who was a bit baffled by her Eb clarinet, and totally blown away to discover Katie's been learning 5 months. It was her first improvisation and she loved it. The improvisation came as part of their final performance, made up of songs, dance, and music covering the whole production. She even performed her bit with smiles and confidence in front of 50 people!

The workshop ran late so we had to hotfoot it across the road to the RAH where we all had tickets to see the ENB in the round production of Swan Lake. The hall took both our breath away, we were front row of the circle. It couldn't have been a better position. The ballet stunned us even more. It was simply phenomenal. A corps of 60 swans. Impeccable dance. Fabulous choreography, so creatively using the ginormous space. Boy do the dancers have to work in that spectacular arena. It was just brilliant. The moment Rothbart rose through the stunning smoke filled lake was brilliant. And the swans.... Wow, the swans..... Truly, the perfect culmination to the day. Her absolute dream day.

We even finished the day off with an hour at the Diana Memorial Fountain to cool off after the show.

She's fast asleep on my lap on the train home. Happy as the proverbial pig.... 

I couldn't pick one photo, so you've got five today.... it was THAT big a day.