A Pratically Perfect Festival :)

My sweet little clown. Dressed up to visit a friend.
On the way over we stopped at the bakery and even
though we were parked right in front, Kangaroo insisted
on hopping out to show people and surprise them.

The real problem with not blogging regularly is that part of our story goes a little bit missing. It doesn't take long until some major happenings haven't been journalled and I find myself uploading a ridiculous amount of photo's to share and trying to figure on how best to tell our tale.

The longer I live in our little town the more I fall in love with it and the friends and connections we're making. It has an interesting history and it proudly lays claim to it's heritage and indulgently celebrates it, beauty and warts and all. The interesting thing about our town is that the author of Mary Poppins, PL Travers, was apparently born here which has led to our town laying claim to 'our Mary' and has turned this connection into a celebration and a festival, culminating in The Mary Poppin's Festival on the first weekend of July.

At the park our talented friends volunteered their time for a week before the festival to create stunningly, magical pavement art creations which awed and amazed crowds on the Sunday of the festival. There are more beautiful pictures below showing the end of all the artist's work.

Mary madness has permeated the air. In the lead up to the festival I'd been fortunate to participate in theater workshops, meaning that most weekends for the past two months were dedicated learning as much as we could in a short amount of time about theater craft and preparing for a play which was written by the director using ideas generated by the workshop participants. The plays' end result was pretty funny and featured a few slapstick elements and completely escaped reality - so well suited to the Mary Poppins festival.

We found some time for things other then Mary related last week. There was some exploration with collage materials trying a Matisse style artwork.

I found that Kookaburra needed encouragement to let go of preformed ideas of how his art should be structured. By having fun with tearing his papers randomly and letting his art work unfold was a little bit of challenge but he did well and we had some great discussions about Pompeii during our work together.

There were lines to learn for me for the play on the Sunday but I was also fortunate enough to learn lines for a commercial which was shot on Thursday. A strange and funny experience which I was lucky enough to share with a friend.

Do I look like a receptionist? That was my part so hopefully....

So many opportunities roll our way when I have my eyes open. Whilst waiting to have a dress rehearsal in our art galleries forecourt, my boys and I stumbled upon a basket weaving workshop run by Aboriginal ladies in preparation for NAIDOC week this week. They were open and patient and I really wish we had of had more time before our performance to do more weaving.

Nervously I waited with friends before our first performance in front of a live audience... well, we thought they were alive but apart from a few sniggers the reaction was definitely lifeless. We were a little concerned how this play we'd worked on was going to go over during the festival.

When Sunday arrived our boys were up before dawn I'm sure, dressed and ready to go. Our first sound check was at nine am. When we arrived and saw the set in a carpark I was really impressed by what our stage manager had procured for our backdrop and that there was even seating! Lots of seating!

By the time the workshops had come to a close, as always, I'd managed to involve my family to some degree. This was Kangaroo's first time on stage and all he had to do was cry on cue and follow direction. He did beautifully!

Hubby lent some know how and muscle where he could.

And as for Kookaburra...

there's a black box sitting on top of his satchel in this photo which contained a remote control for the animatronic parrot which during the plays he directed the parrots eyes and beak when it took it's turn to narrate our story.

The play went off well and people laughed in all the right places and I even remembered my lines well enough to enjoy the show. Such a relief! When I try to remember something like this I worry, panic and then my mind goes blank. Just terrible :O!

The rest of the festival was full of colour in the finished art works.

There is a great joy for us, hanging with our family doing something unusual and fun. I admittedly did get a bit stressed out, but the benefits of having everyone involved as opposed to not was worth the fraction or so of tetchiness that came from me.

A very happy Kangaroo after his performance.

One of the highlights of the Mary Poppins festival is the Great Nanny Challenge. Our director borrowed a skirt and dressed as a naughty nanny so he could give it a go. The Nanny Challenge is a race for Nanny's and their baby carriages. They compete against each other over a short course and the first to cross the finish line wins But! there are rules like no running, no elbowing or jostling each other and then they must change the baby too in order to win. Our Naughty Nanny lost and he was hilarious about it too. Jumping up and down on his hat, whilst gnashing his teeth and tossing his baby bundle from the pram (thankfully it was only a teddy bear) not mention the run/walk!

My niece in red had a go too.


This is me and a great lady, we're dressed as Mary Poppins and the Bird Lady.

After the plays were done we still had more to do , so much to see and do. Our favourite is always the Chimney Sweep Challenges but absolutely best of all this year was going to high tea attended by none other Australia's own Mary, the star of the Mary Poppins musical, Verity Hunt-Ballard.

Kookaburra described the occasion afterwards as being incredibly exciting because he had met his first real celebrity!

It's was a very busy and full week but the highlight was meeting Verity and listening to her speak of her life in the theater and her role as Mary in the Mary Poppins musical. She was well spoken and lovely and she claimed to love our town and it's baking too! It was pretty embarrassing when our compere asked our lovely guest if she'd like a doggy bag to take back with her. Sheesh! But honestly it was difficult to resist a spread like this one at the High Tea. As always, we were amongst the last to leave and we were fortunate to run into friends talking with Verity so we got to have a little up close and personal dose of this practically perfect gal.

So this entry was massive and I wonder if perhaps it may have been better as a dot point. Never mind. I'm so glad I got it up and haven't missed this opportunity to share. Can you see why I love our town? The longer we live here I see just how very a special place it is for our family to grow together in. It etches itself deeply in our hearts. and I think of it truly as our home town. We can't wait until next years festival and I know we're all wondering in what capacity we'll be attending, as visitors or volunteers?

As long as I'm with my family, it'll be just ace.