Mardi Grass 2008

Last year, we partied for two days and then went to the doof after mardi grass. This year, we fed the baby and went to sleep.
The carnival parade was better than in '07 or '06 though, and overall the event feels more successful than those previous years in merging the political with the personal. On this note, I was amazed to hear that Albert Hoffmann had died. I saw no obits anywhere - it's as if he'd never existed. Maybe it's just in Murdoch-land, but the lack of any media reaction to his passing seems downright creepy to me.

There were several reasons making this one a big mardi grass - it was the 35th anniversary of the Nimbin Aquarius Festival, and one of the Nimbin's Icon's, the Plantem, died recently, and his image adorned the publicity for the festival. As usual, the town was packed for a week leading up to mardi grass, and as usual, most everyone was smiley, happy, and having a great time.
We finally got around to checking out the Bush Theatre, which reopened a couple of weeks back - it's got a great little auditorium and a rocking sound-system, so there should be some mashup events there if they use the venue right. It's such a perfect space, nestled over the bridge by the river, half in and half out of town - it seems impossible it was ever closed, yet also impossible to see how it can be truly profitable; I hope very much that either I'm proved wrong, or the community finds away to keep it open without it having to make a (monetary) profit.
On the home front we've been making steady progress back to normality in the aftermath of the chaos caused by the tree-felling and termite treatments: We have developed a low-tech system for maneuvering the tree stumps around the garden - I roll them a few inches at a time, and C follows up immediately with a chock to prevent them rolling back. It's slow and annoying, but it works. I've been swiftly chainsawing up the piles of older wood, and it seems to multiply as you chop - I've been chuffed to realise we actually have more than enough fuel for the wood-fire to keep us snug all winter!
Our cacti and capsicum plants have both produced babies, which we've potted out. I'm going to have to find some capsicum recipes for the spring, or we'll be overwhelmed! We also have a few kilos of tangerines coming along, a couple of kilos of lemons, and probably a fair few bananas - the lesson for next year is, if it doesn't rain heavily in February and March, water the bloody trees!
Ah, yeah, and I got my Wii hooked up.