You don’t have to be out of step on flamenco floor

UNO dos tres – ready?

Venga! Let’s go. Ju estart with the left. Jes, left. No, other left. Si. Bueno. Uno dos tr- WAIT! Estart again. Left foot. Left, left, left. Right. Ready?

Whether it’s a midlife crisis or misguided desire to prove that old dogs can learn new tricks, signing up for a beginners flamenco class might seem like a good idea back in the summer when it’s still months away, as unreal as an Andalucian dream. And then you find yourself in a huge room with a mirrored wall, several other fortysomethings who also think they are still 25, and a baby-faced Joaquin Cortes lookalike with stampy flamenco boots, flowing hair and flashing dark eyes. You are, of course, old enough to be his mother — if you were a beautiful Spanish gypsy lady and not a pasty-faced Celt.

Bueno! And again! Left stamp and cross. Uno dos tres. Right stamp and cross. Arms! Arms! Seduction! Passion! Okay ESTOP. Remember jur right and left. Forget seduction for now.

Imagine a line of arthritic gnus being led to a watering hole by a leaping gazelle. It still doesn’t come close to what is being reflected in the mirrored wall — readers of a nervous disposition might wish to stop creating mental images now. The teacher, facing his pupils, is not even hiding his laughter at the unco-ordinated clumping going on in front of him. You wonder why he is doing this, until you remember the cheque you wrote him earlier. See? That’s how old you are. You still write cheques.

Until coming into this class, you may have thought yourself reasonably fit for purpose. Yes, you may be — ahem — mature, and yes, you are no longer svelte, lithe, or even the right side of hefty, but this is all about awakening your inner gitana, right? Gitana is not a brand of cigarettes by the way, it’s Spanish for gypsy. The ones who invented flamenco. You’ve been in the backstreet bars of Sevilla and Granada at three in the morning and seen it danced, clapped, stamped, all drama and sinew — nothing on earth coming close to its beauty, its passion, its intensity.

And nothing on earth is going to make you dance like an Andaluz gitana, mostly because you are a deluded Irish woman desperately trying to co-ordinate feet, arms and hands without falling over. Never mind looking seductive. It’s all you can do to keep upright.

But still. The great thing about middle age is that the worse you look, the less you care. By the end of the 90 minutes, red faced and sweating, you are helpless with laughter and have learned a whole load of new Spanish swear words.

You take comfort in your fellow gnus being just as rubbish as yourself. Everyone is awful, apart from the teacher, who is godlike.

Bravo! he says, clapping at the end. You can tell he doesn’t really mean it.