A full ballet type day

Up and on a train early doors to be in Mayfair for physio at 09.30! Yawn. Too early to be up on an inset day. But she now has some exercises to do for her splits and is happy to have something to work on.

After a long play in Lush and a long chat with a member of staff we headed for an early lunch before doing the backstage tour at the ROH. We were so very lucky, they were doing stage rehearsal for Nutcracker, which we weren't allowed to see but we were allowed in the auditorium during scene change, which was great to watch. C recognised Christopher Carr from the Nutcracker documentary in the auditorium. He's the guy who casts the Royal Ballet School students in their parts for Nutcracker. We also saw Drosselmyer's house close up during the scene change. From there we went backstage proper and came out of the lifts at a studio where Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov were rehearsing Sugar Plum Fairy with Leslie Collier and Irek Mukhamedov coaching. I didn't think I would be able to get Carys away from the window. Amazingly, they will be the Prince and Sugar Plum Fairy we see when we go in January.

From there we had a glimpse of the off stage area from a high up viewing area and we also visited the hat and jewellery dept where we saw angel crowns, Mad Hatter's hat and the face cast of Gary Avis.

From the Opera House we headed to Pineapple where C had an hour's 121 with Sarah Daultry before her normal ABA class. She came out beaming, she'd done pointe work, been given exercises and it seems a big lift in confidence. Money well spent.