Oxford life. Thirtysomething challenges. Music leanings. Anything really.

I went to the Sleeping Beauty ballet at the New Theatre the other night. First ballet experience ever, you can read my review here.

Apart from getting free tickets for events, at the bigger theatres one also gets some free drinks at the intervals - all part of the schmoozing process, dahlings. As a mere Daily Information reviewer, I normally get shunned by the assembled "proper" journalists, but this often just inspires me to be more chatty.

With this in mind, I got to the Dorrille Suite, grabbed my champagne and made small talk with the first person I saw - mentioning the snow, the traffic, talking about Iffley. In fact, I waffled on about anything but the ballet.

It was only when I sat back down in my seat and read through my programme that I realised I had just blathered on to Ellen Kent, the Producer/Director of the ballet we were watching. And I hadn't deemed it important to congratulate her on her production. Ooops.

During the second interval we did chat more about the ballet, and it was faascinating. Although, I couldn't quite relate to the difficulty of taking her stage water garden to the Middle East: "Quelle Horreure, you know I love my water gardens, but it's a devil to get them to Qatar."

A great night out.