The wet boots and shoes were lined up by the radiators and Gram supervised everyone getting dried off, assisting where needed, lending combs and hair-brushes from her voluminous “Gram Bag” which had, in its time, been likened to the one carried by Mary Poppins since it always seemed to contain whatever was needed in the moment, while Miranda helped Laura in the kitchen.

“Sammie soup!” Laura announced as she and her friend came back into the hall carrying trays of steaming mugs. “Get it while it’s hot!” Everyone sat in the chairs around the edge of the dance floor area, warming up and enjoying their soup, happily chatting and recounting highlights of the epic snow battle and generally discussing the day so far. Seeing the boys put their warm, dry clothes back on, Josh and the other dads were annoyed at themselves for not having spare clothes to change into. Those who could took off their Christmas jumpers which were soaked through, leaving their thankfully dry shirts and T-shirts underneath but all were stuck in their wet jeans. “Ooh yeah, that reminds me!” Laura grinned when she saw the jumpers hung on the back of chairs to dry. “I forgot to show this to Sammie in all the business and excitement, but I think the rest of you will approve!”

As the others watched, intrigued, as she took off her jumper to reveal the “Proud Turkey Mum” T-shirt underneath, complete with the edited photograph of Samantha.

“You did a pretty good job with the editing!” Josh complimented her, looking at the familiar photograph afresh now he had the image in his mind of Samantha as she had really looked when roasted to compare it to. “Pretty much spot-on, honestly!”

“Oh yeah!” Laura turned to her brother. “You wanted to ask me about the calendar?”

“Right!” Martin nodded, remembering the pin they had put in their earlier conversation. “It wasn’t so much about the calendar itself, actually, as cool as it is, it was about the picture editing.” Laura nodded. “You did it all yourself?”

“I did!” Laura smiled proudly. “Under Sammie’s supervision, of course!”

“Of course!” Martin chuckled. “But what I was wondering was, have you ever done video?”

“A bit.” Laura frowned slightly. “But it’s quite a different medium, editing-wise. Why?” she asked curiously. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well you remember that version of Kinky Boots Sidney did, back in the day?” he asked.

“Vaguely!” Laura nodded. She had been in her late teens when it came out and definitely remembered it being something that got played a lot, and how controversial the video had been because of the nudity. It seemed silly, looking back, but it had come out two years before Sidney’s decisive victory was was really the first time she had come to mainstream public attention, in the UK at least, and people had been shocked that a music video prominently featuring a naked ten year old girl was allowed. Some stations would only show it censored and it sparked a lot of debate on panel-shows and radio phone-ins. She remembered even then being amused by the level of pearl-clutching over what honestly seemed like a fairly cute, goofy video featuring a pretty little starlet who was confident in her own skin. “Why?”

“Well, as you may have noticed,” Martin chuckled, “Willow is rather obsessed with Sidney!”

“I did rather get that impression.” Laura nodded in mock-thoughtfulness.

“Well she’s been wanting to try to do her own version of the video.” he explained. “But it’s a bit beyond us! Do you think it’s something you could manage?” Her curiosity piqued and always up for a creative challenge, Laura took out her phone and looked up the short video, letting it play through twice while she watched carefully, trying to mentally dissect the composition of each shot.

“Honestly, it’s would be pretty straight-forward.” She scrolled back to half way through the video and showed a few seconds to her brother. “It’s really just a series of still images edited together quickly with some fairly basic effects. The only tricky thing would be the timing but if I break this one down frame by frame I can pretty much copy it. The only thing I’m not sure I can do is this effect here, see?” She pulled the slider back to the very beginning of the video where four Sidneys shuffled their way across the screen wiggling their cute rumps in time to the music, all wearing different coloured hat and boot combos. “It’s the same clip used over and over,” she explained, “but with the colours changed, which means she was probably wearing green. I can certainly see if I can get some other colours to map on but it’s a lot trickier with a moving image so Willow may have to be okay with all of them being in pink.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind!” Martin smiled. “She’d just be so excited to see herself starring in the video!”

“Better keep your eye out for costumes!” Laura chuckled. “Sidney gets through quite a few in such a short video! But yeah, let’s try to set something up before the kids go back to school so we can have a photo session, shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours, really, then I can try to get it done in time for her birthday.”

“That would be wonderful!” Martin beamed, leaning over to hug his sister. “Thank you so much! She’ll be thrilled!”

“Everyone done with their soup?” Laura asked, standing up and looking around the hall, amused but not especially surprised to see that none of the girls, even Rachel, had bothered putting any clothes back on. Empty mugs were shown as evidence and Gram and Gramps began to collect them back up. “Who’s ready for a dance party?” The guests, young and old alike, all cheered. “Now, like all the music you’ve heard today,” Laura explained, “this is a playlist that Sammie made and she wouldn’t let me see it so I’ve no idea what’s on it but she assured me it’s all good stuff to dance to and that at least some of you will know the moves for the ones that have set dances and she hopes that those who know will show those who don’t, okay?” This was met by general intrigued enthusiasm. “It runs for about an hour, apparently,” she continued, “then I think we’ll all be ready for some more food! Now, the only thing she would tell me,” Laura walked over to the music box and swapped the USB for the one marked “Dance Party”, “is that we all have to be in a circle for the first one so let’s get ready!”

Intrigued and excited, everyone got up, pushed their chairs as far back as they would go and arranged themselves into a circle in the middle of the dance floor, leaving a space between Amanda and Rob for Laura who set the music playing then ran over to join in. As soon as the first bars played, everyone recognised the Hokey Cokey. There was no denying that the familiar party dance hit a little different when half the participants were naked and curvy, busty teen Rachel putting her whole self in, her whole self out, in, out, in, out and shaking it all about was a sight that would be definitely be burned into everyone’s memories for a long time to come!

Next was an action song from eighties which talked the dancers through a sequence of moves that got increasingly fast with each repetition. This was one of Gram’s favourites from her own youth and she happily demonstrated all the moves that weren’t obvious from their description. Of course nobody needed instructions on how to run around the room pretending to be Superman! This was followed by The Birdie Song which, although it had no official lyrics, had some commonly accepted words that all the adults sang as they danced, much to the amusement of the children who never the less loved the part where they were encouraged to shake their rumps!

Next came The Macarena and this was Gramps’ time to shine! Quickly, he organised everyone into three rows of five and instructed everyone to copy him as he led them through the repeating sequence that had always been something of a party piece of his! Once again, a fair amount of booty-shaking was involved and there was a general feeling that most of Samantha’s selections had been made with this in mind!


To be continued...