Note to self: Buy Sat Nav

Posted by Katy Regan at 10:41 on 20 Jun 2008

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As part of Project Love Myself and Project Boyfriend all rolled into one, I decided I should do what they tell you to do in magazines and ‘join a new group’. So, last night, like a good girl, I spurned my old friends (all wonderful but no use to me in the finding-a-boyfriend arena) and decided to drive to Penge to the South London Lindy Hop Club. For anyone who doesn’t know, lindy hop is sort of jiving to '30s and '40s music. I’ve always quite fancied myself in a tea-dress with pin curls so I thought, 'Why the hell not?.'  
 
Caron, the owner of the club, was really friendly on the phone, although she was in hospital having a new knee fitted at the time which did worry me a little bit in terms of the age of those at the South London Lindy Hop Club (did you actually have to be BORN in the 1930s?)  BUT she said ‘Lynn’ would be at the door to welcome me and  that it was a ‘taster’ night so there’d be loads of new people there and that I should wear a ‘soft shoe’ preferably a trainer and that there was a free bar afterwards.
 
Normally, that would have me there whether or not there was any dancing first, but being the professional that I am I decided I needed to be totally on form today for the last big push doing my edits for the book and so  I decided to drive.  
 
BIG MISTAKE
 
It turns out that Penge, despite being possibly the most unglamorous location for a dance class in the world, is also impossible to find. Even with printed out directions from Route Master (it said it would take me 0.24 minutes. It took me three hours, and even then I didn’t find it) and an A to Z, pissing Penge was nowhere to be seen.
 
If I have to drive around the Catford Gyratory one more time in this lifetime, I will personally drive to Caron’s house and wrestle her to the ground, new knee or no new knee.
 
I ended up in a place called Lee (???) probably about five minutes away from Royston Road in Penge, but still I was totally lost and by now it was twenty minutes after the start of the class.
 
I had no choice but to take me, and my sorry little soft shoes, back home to Camberwell via the total armpit that is Catford Gyratory, Lewisham roundabout and New Cross.
 
I arrived home, THREE HOURS after I started out and not even having had a dance class in all of that time! Not the best evening I’ve ever had in London, that’s for sure,  but at least I learnt a valuable lesson: I need Sat Nav like the very short-sighted need glasses.
 
Anyway, maybe it was not meant to be, since that day - yesterday – I’d had more than enough excitement already.
 
I had my author picture done yesterday you see! All very exciting and real and made me feel more like a proper author than sitting in my mum’s old dressing gown writing the damn thing (which is what I have been mainly doing this morning...)!
 
I think I have now perfected my 'look-at-me-professional-author-relaxing at home' look, so maybe I should have just stayed put, relaxing at home, preferably at my writing table, where at least I can’t get lost!

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