Week Ending

Saturday was a hot, hot day. It was the day of Richmond's City Centre Celebration. I had to lug 'the beast' and a couple of extremely heavy boxes across a field to set up. The beast is a huge wheeled container containing our metal folding backboards.

Having set up and sat down, we were then told to move to another location. I put my foot down and refused, but this was pointless since blue-T-shirted volunteers were already taking my stuff down and moving it like a team of relentless nanobots.

Across the field, now at a bigger table, we found ourselves next to what could have been the cast of some new sitcom. A large, alert black woman, a skinny black man, and a mouthy, buxom white woman who sat and complained loudly about everything. There was a lot to be complained about frankly. Lack of toilets for one. No food either.

We had been told there would be food vendors, so not to worry so much about bringing our own. At the last minute, the City shot its own foot by introducing stringent new food prep regulations that pretty much took everyone out of the picture. There was some iced tea available. Yuk.

The good thing about the day was the company I had to help. I enjoyed that part of it. Clearly we're not doing a good enough job of educating the public about nature though. Many identified a crow as an ostrich, or in some cases even a camel.
One lady came and peered at the sign, then read it out. Finally she realised who we were and exclaimed,
'Oh, many blueberry bushes park!'
'Yep, that's us.'

We had a swift turnaround.
We met Steve and Christine for snacks and an exorbitantly expensive bottle of wine, then we went on to a stand-up open mic at the Film school where Steve teaches.
All the comics were men, which was a shame, because the tendency was for a lot of adolescent male humour, although several of them were exceptionally good.
We were very late getting home.

Today was another hot, hot day. I painted. And ...well...sweated.