Happy new year, everyone…
The grand adventure was grand but it is good to be back in Melbourne… with our lovely kitty and our beautiful house, both of which were looked after incredibly well by horngirl (thank you!!).
Despite everybody’s dire warnings, the flights (Melb to Bris, Bris to Syd, Syd to Melb) didn’t hurt at all, although my feet swelled up pretty badly on the middle one, possibly due to having walked all over Woodford for the previous week.
The heat didn’t incapacitate me at all — I love heat; I got my belly covered in henna — photos to come; lots of lovely people cooed over my henna-decorated belly; I saw terrific music; we ran two fairly successful workshops of citizen media; and I spent time with people I only get to see around Woodford, like Geoff Wilson and Melinda Reed and Angela Deane and Lily Collard and now Rachel di Re. Amusingly, I discovered that my old friend from primary and high school, Lesley Jones, has been going to Woodford for the last six years. Why? Because her partner and the father of her two kids is Lino from Waiting for Guiness. We think the only reason I haven’t run into her in the past is because she has spent most of the previous festivals in the children’s festival, but now that Joey is 9 and Oscar is 6 or so, they were out and about more.
Doug managed to come down with a stomach bug early in the festival, so his enjoyment was tempered somewhat and we didn’t end up having many big nights. We had a quiet New Year’s and didn’t make it up the hill for the sunrise ceremony, but that was fine by both of us really, as much as I would like to think I could haul myself up there, it probably wasn’t a good idea. As it was, we could hear the shakahachi flute and the Tibetan singing waft down into our tent and lay there as the sky turned pink looking out through our little window.
The big night for me was the night before that, actually, the 20th birthday party for the chai tent, where I danced to Jambezi, and then Transfusion (a new outfit from the Dva guys) and finally Wild Marmalade. I staggered back to the tent by 2am, very tired but very happy.
Then of course, we went to Sydney for Coopstock, which this year was every single Oscar-winning animated short in chronological order. It was terrific. There are some clangers in there, but there are also obviously some absolutely brilliant pieces, such as "The Old Man and the Sea", "The Dot and the Line", "Herb Alpert Double Feature" (and Matthew went to considerable effort to get this), "Sand Castle" (beautiful, beautiful film), "Crac" (lovely, touching film about the life of a rocking chair), "Tango" (amazing piece of choreography!), "The Man who Planted Trees", and "Ryan" (an incredible, confronting biopic). That’s not to mention all the well known Pixar and Aardman shorts and other nifty items like "The Chubb Chubbs".
Some of you know that a few years ago, crystal_storm , razorgirl_au and I started a tradition of choosing a word for each year rather than doing resolutions. That tradition has now spread further afield, as many of you commented with your own words on last year’s post, which I love. My word last year was "grace", which, interestingly, is a word Doug has been using to describe how I’ve handled the challenges of this pregnancy. I think I have brought more grace into my life this year: I am calmer, and more at peace with myself than in any time in my memory.
My word for this year is "open": opening physically to give birth, opening emotionally to love this new addition to our family, being open to change, being open to challenge.
Feel free to join in our tradition and share your word if you choose. Love to all!