Castlemaine State Festival 2011 ; the final washup

So here's the thing

Pretty much every day for the last week and a half, I've composed mental blog posts... mostly in the car ... or under the shower.

They were witty and polished.
Moving even.
They would have really made you want to jump on a bus/train/plane and get yourself up/down/over here ... if I had, in point of fact, actually got as far as the keyboard,
but alack
and alas even
there was just sooooo much going on, that just didn't happen.
as you may have noticed

there was:
mass dancing in the streets at the Opening Ceremony
marvelous pieces of theatre to be seen/heard/enjoyed in venues both traditional and decidedly not.*
wonderful exhibitions by just about every practising artist in the area
fabulous concerts [ the standout for Nadie and I had to be Toronto-based Klezmer band ' Beyond The Pale' and their Beyond Mozart concert

... the divine Wolfgang Amadeus played on electric mandolin, violin, clarinet, piano accordion and bass ... some of it in Balkan 7/8 time !!!! ]

singing ... in the street outside the Castlemaine Fruit & Veg with the Peace Choir
singing ... at the railway station [ at 6 am ] with the Chat Warblers
singing ... with a cast of what seemed like thousands in the IGA Supermarket [ and apparently we were on ABC Radio too but I missed it ]
some seriously frocked-up** singing ... with soloists from Victorian opera conducted by Richard Gill in a sing-your-own Mozart to Mayhem concert.

Surprisingly, I have almost no voice left, and and seriously need to buy shares in whichever pharmaceutical company makes Strepsils.

Oh, and I mustn't forget that David got involved too

and then there was the all-day closing party yesterday
but I'm all tuckered out so I'm going to leave that for tomorrow


* down a Goldmine

**frocked up: the condition of being very, very dressed up for an occasion such as The Opera or The Ballet.
In the case of my friend Janey, it meant swapping her habitual checked-work-shirt-and -jeans for a pristine white-shirt-and-jeans.

Some of us who did frock up as directed, scored double pass tickets to a Victorian Opera production in Melbourne later in the year.