Daniella's Ramblings

After our lovely lunch and a successful shopping excursion (https://daniellaargento.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/clothes-shopping-and-lunch/) my wife and I went home. We decided to have a little bit of a rest before getting ready to go to the ballet. As I had already taken all my clothes out and had done a thorough preparation earlier in the day this was fine for me. We had a nice rest and chatted about this and that.

I then went and fed our pets and we started getting ready. I had been planning my outfit for months in advance. My only concern had been the weather. It is autumn in the Southern Hemisphere and I was concerned that it would be too cold for my sleeveless dress. I had tried on a number of my wife’s jackets but they all felt too small. We are generally the same size but my shoulders are wider than hers (my breasts are smaller) and that means that dresses are interchangeable but jackets are another story. I had therefore gone to a few clothing stores during the week and had spotted a lovely jacket. It was very reasonably priced, so I got it. I have been itching to wear it for days.

The whole outfit I had put together was as follows. A sleeveless coral dress, black stockings, black stiletto boots, the leopard print jacket, large gold hoop earrings, a gold necklace the gold bracelets I got at Mr Price earlier that day and a selection of gold rings. The underwear chosen is on a need to know basis.

I have some pictures below.

Fortunately this time I remembered to do the beard cover thing and I am happier with my makeup here. Unfortunately I decided to do a touch up shave and as I thought I was so well prepared, I let time run away with me and we realised we were actually running late. I threw on the last bits of the outfit and my wife repaired some damage that had been done to my nails. We snapped some photos (no crossdressing expedition is complete without the obligatory fashion shoot) and we were off.

I am very glad we delayed a bit to take the photographs. We have a couple living on the same property as us and they came home just as we were about to leave. If we had not taken the photos I am sure we would have run into one another and that would have been awkward. As it is I went out our front door and waited on the veranda for my wife to bring the car around. As she came down the drive I raced across the front lawn and I think the cloak and dagger worked.

We arrived at the theatre with a few minutes to spare. But the parking garage was full. No problem, the security guard allowed us to park literally at the front door. We felt like real VIPs, a feeling that I was going to get again later in the evening.

I texted our friends (Jenny and Lidea), who were meeting at the ballet, to say we had arrived. Sadly they were running late. We went in and made for the door we had to use to get to our seats. My wife saw a few work colleagues and was worried, for my sake, that we would run into them so we moved along swiftly. We waited outside the door but with five minutes before curtain up we took to our seats.

We had no sooner sat down than a fellow audience member needed to get past us as she had gone down the wrong row to get to her seat. She came up to us and without hesitating said ‘sorry ladies, can I get past’. I was happy with that. We sat down again and just as we thought we may not be seeing Jenny and Lidea that evening after all, in they came they sat down and literally moments later the curtain came up and the performance began.

The performance was truly brilliant. It was a joint production by the Johannesburg Ballet Company and the Liaoning Ballet of China. All the dancers were technically excellent and this made for a performance of the very best standard I have witnessed. The jester was fantastic. He seemed to have so much fun and just the right amount of athleticism, rhythm and poise for the role. He had an excellent sense of comedy and carried his performance very well. The Prince was also very good. All the male dancers were very good at getting height and seemed to have amazing ‘hang time’. Their legs were powerful, flexible and seemed to be elastic throughout with amazing amounts of energy stored in their muscles.  The female dancers were equally good with a more athletic style than I am used to but it seemed to work. Although some of the landings were a little heavy this was compensated for by their overall excellence.

The pas de quatre was sublime with the dancers seemingly moving as one. Overall all the dancers were extremely well-drilled with every angle being perfect. The timing was brilliant and movements started and ended almost faultlessly on cue. The one criticism I have is that the music was recorded, not live. This meant that a number of musicians went hungry and that as there was no conductor some of the entrances were not perfectly timed with the music. A good conductor (yes musicians of the world such a thing exists) would have been able to fix that but it is considerably harder to get right with a recording.

After the show we met up with our friends Lidea and Jenny. We had previously only met on Facebook so it was lovely to get to know them better. We spent a long time chatting about children, schooling, crossdressing, trans* issues and the role of spouses in this. We had something to eat and a very good hot chocolate.

The restaurant technically closed at 11 pm but it was 12 am before we left. On standing up I noticed that the stocking on my right leg had laddered terribly. This was probably my fault. The dress is a little short and my lacy stocking top had been peaking out all night. This necessitated pulling the dress down and the stockings up on an ongoing basis. No doubt my nails caught and pulled the nylon. Not only was this embarassing, but it was also annoying. I had just bought those stockings recently and had literally unpacked them that night. Expensive!

Anyway we headed on out and it was at this point that I got my first sense of what celebrities may go through. We had decided we would take a few snaps to remember the evening by so we were planning on looking for a suitable spot. On reaching the door of the restaurant we were asked if we would mind taking a few photographs for and with the waiters and waitresses. I thought nothing of this at first. Oh my word! It was like kids in a candy store being told the candy was free for the next 30 seconds. They went mad. Group photographs, photos with Jenny and I, photos with spouses, waiters and waitresses coming in and going flashes all over the place. I spotted the bartenders sneaking some photos from behind the bar. Someone grabbed Jenny’s leg and lifted it higher as well. This all started to make me feel a little uncomfortable and I was glad when they had had their fill.

Below are a few group snaps from that session. My makeup was in full melt down mode by now.

We said goodbye to our friends and took the very short walk to our car (the VIP parking spot is the best, wish I knew how to secure it in the future) and took a short drive home. I reluctantly (as usual) changed out of my clothes and put ‘Daniella’ away until next time. We had a truly lovely evening and it was the perfect end to an amazing day. It was lovely to spend quality time with my wife and we enjoyed meeting Jenny and Lidea. With a bit of luck we may be able to get out and about with them again.