Another fantastic Celtic Festival day

I'm sure the perfect weather is the reason this year's festival was such a good weekend. Bit of a frost both mornings and stunning, clear, crisp days - showcasing the best of autumn weather on the tablelands.

It's no wonder that Littlefella is mad about weapons, if the activities of otherwise sane adult males are anything to go by. There were the Aussies dressing up as 18th Century Irishmen who'd made it to North America and were fighting in the civil war - primarily, I think, as an excuse to play with guns and wear silly hats and shout at each other in silly accents. (An aside: from what I have been observing of the teenage girls at TAFE, they do much the same stuff but to them it's "real life". They just don't realise that what they do is also dress-ups and silliness.)

Back to the blokes, but, eh. The 18th century fake Irish Americans played with guns again, with suitable falling down after loud bangs (only the cannon didn't work properly today, so we didn't hear the biggest bang), then the dead and the wounded stood up for a round of applause and made way for the Roman Gladiators with their Centurion (?) guards. Littlefella agonised long and hard over clearing out his entire bank account, but after much discussion and deliberation, he is now the proud owner of an expensive fake shield to match his expensive fake sword. He's a bit shy, so it took a lot of subversive action on my behalf to get him to stand in the same frame as a bloke in dress-ups, but it was worth the effort. I think the memories of this weekend will stand us in good stead. All of us got something out of it, including the Feral Teenager who had the opportunity to thank the local Rotary club for their support of some of his activities by doing some volunteer work.

My personal favourite was that I got to sit and soak up some lovely music. Nothing world- shattering (just the thought of a Cat Empire concert makes me feel shaky, oh that would be sheer bliss!) but I really enjoyed myself. I saw Pat Drummond perform a couple of times, twice with the group The Leaping Lizards, twice solo, including this afternoon (see photo left) when he was performing solo but the brilliant fiddler Andrew Clermont just wandered along and plugged his violin into an amp and did a bit of random backing music just for the fun of it. All so casual. Fantastic.

Then there were the pipe bands, individually and massed (I love being behind the drummers at the back of a massed pipe band, stirs the blood!); the pre-recorded music that the different dancers performed to, including some sword dancing to modern pop/rock, had a good laugh at the irony and the screwed-up faces of the grey brigade; the folksy duos and groups, the bad dirges and the bouncy rollicking tunes. There was just enough happening to see a bit of everything by wandering at random, but not so much that it was overwhelming.

Stoked. Loved it. Hope the weather's decent again next year - but if not, I'll be happy to have seen this festival at its best.