Finale

The persistent and annoying sound of a blowfly was my first clue that daylight was already here. I pulled a sheet over my head and tried to hit snooze on my flying alarm clock. The minutes passed and gradually my thoughts became more coherent. A whispering thought echoed through my mind - it is the very last show day of tour.

We have been in Parkes since Monday and it has been a long week. HIgh winds slowed Tent-up to almost double the time, we have been busy participating in the local Christmas parade and doing flier handouts on stilts. It is hard to believe that after 30 stands we are rounding up for our finale. What a year!

It is time for me to go and set my props for the last time, set out the seating, hang the backstage curtains and make sure that our sweet stand is clean and ready for customers.. That's right, it is almost SHOWTIME!

The WILDlife on tour

Australia. Land of the dry ground, deadly wildlife, violent birds, and drunken townsfolk - actually, all of these things were a part of our time in the sizable town of Griffith in the heart of New South Wales.

The air was hot and dusty, the ground was hot and dusty, we encountered the most solid rock-like ground for our pegs that we have ever seen - the boys hammered away for hours, struggling and sweating to get the tent up. I had a good go at the pegs, but my tiny girly body didn't even succeed in getting one full peg into the ground, so I set about arranging all of the marking materials for the next stand.

Our kiwis experienced the swooping magpie for the first time this morning. Luke turned around, returned to the caravan and emerged holding a large stick above his head.. Kerry turned to face his feathered opponent and commenced a Haka.

Today it was clear that the time had come to take up arms against the magpies. And by arms, I actually mean legs as we ran back to the caravan, giving up on the hope of bathroom attendance.
The magpies were viscous, violent and aggressive. It was impossible to leave the confines of our fence line without an assault. I think now our two Kiwi boys have a solid Maggie phobia!

Night fell, the only safe time to visit the bathrooms - or was it?

The early sunbeams crossed the caravan and the various phone alarms chorused in the morning light. Kerry emerged from his sleeping quarters and stumbled across to our caravan. We heard a plaintive call from him and opened the door to find him looking woeful and holding up his drink bottle.
Floating in about an inch of water left at the bottom of his bootle was a HUGE dead Red back spider. The redback is a spider that has been responsible for a number of deaths on Australia, and is broadly recognised at the top of the venomous spider lists. Apparently the spider had crawled into the bottle as Kerry, half asleep filled it up in the middle of the night. Through the night he had drunk most of the water, without realising that it housed his deadly friend. "Will it hurt me if I have drunk some spider?" He wailed.

Tent time!

The circus has begun a new tour in our tiny-top circus tent. It is back to caravan life for us and the mercy of weather, wind, ground conditions and wildlife. This week we have two towns of shows, one in Darlington Point and then, the weekend in Griffith.

 Darlington Point is a little one street town of  pub, a fish and chip shop and a little caravan park. We stayed in the caravan park for a week or so while we did the poster runs. The family that ran it are really lovely. The town is hot, dry and there were never many people on the streets.

The tent is going up here, while at the same time, we go ahead to Griffith to visit the schools and shops with posters. Everyone has a million jobs in this circus at the best of times - more so, in a two stand week. It is so exciting to be out of the halls and theatres and back in our little tent. The whole team is buzzing and the lifting of the tent has attracted more than a little attention from the people in town.

Here is a pic of the tent *almost* set up - Luke managed to get basically the entire thing up on his own while we were away for marketing - The whole time being attacked by dangerous swooping wildlife! (Aussies will know exactly what I mean, everyone else can imagine whatever flying beasts you think would be the most terrifying)


:D