The Festival State

No big spider sightings this week, so a picture of Xmas day instead. Nice and topical.

It’s Saturday afternoon in the garden and pretty warm. I’ve had a blast in the hills on my bike and followed it up with a wander round the National Wine Centre, conveniently located 10 minutes walk from my house. There are loads of how to make wine exhibits, but more interesting is the cheap local wine tasting.

At the moment there is a festival of festivals. We have a fringe festival which lasts for 3 weeks. Lots and lots of great shows, the quality of busker has gone through the roof and one part of town seems to be drunk pretty much 24/7.

This more beer and kebab-centric scene is now rubbing shoulders with the real festival. A little more wine and canapés, as the ballet dancers and divas roll into town. To mark this, we had the most spectacular opening ceremony, choreographed by the people who did the winter Olympics. This consisted of grand pianos and ballerinas whizzing overhead on wires suspended over the river. All of which depicted an odd narrative about a man who lived in a house which didn’t exist and burned everything he found.

Adelaide is only a small city, so where they will fit the huge music festival which starts next weekend is beyond me.

While all this is going on, parts of the city are turning into race track as huge concrete blocks and huge banks of seating are put up for four days of motor racing through the streets. They used to have a Grand Prix here and are still quite bitter about losing it to Melbourne. So they push the boat out for this one.

As if this wasn’t enough, every weekend has at least two food and wine festivals going on in various suburbs. These are simple affairs. You get a glass of wine and a plate of food. Eat one, drink the other, then go and fill up again. Repeat until you can’t.

However, I am told that nothing happens here from April until Xmas. Apart from the test match here starting on 1st December. But that’s for another day.

On another note, Mandy has landed some voluntary work at a local wildlife park. This involves a lot of sweeping up, window cleaning and clearing up animal poo. On the up side she feeds echidnas and wombats, ducklings and kookaburras and has parrots stand on her head. She’s loving it and it is hard work getting her to do a shift at the hospital.

All over the news is the shattered image of Australia as a nation of bronzed hunks, they are apparently increasingly tubby. which has led to a toilet manufacturer redesigning their products take a bit more weight. This presumably explains the shame of losing to New Zealand in the sheep shearing world cup final and could easily explain the one metre lobster found in Tasmania this week.

As for me, work at Adelaide City Council is plodding along. It’s a decent place to work and very different to Salford. The city has the plan of getting a lot more companies operating in the city. My part in this master plan is to look after a few initiatives which might help this. Currently this means trying to convince Greek and Italian chaps to spend some money on their city centre office buildings.
They are somewhat reluctant, but my negotiating skills are coming on well.

Thanks for the comments that have been posted, even to Keith Mitchell for his pithy effort. It’s good to hear from you. Keep well.

Mandy & Will