Thursday, February 16 .....

I was hanging out the washing this morning and on the other side of the fence perhaps 20m away was a Bennet’s wallaby with a joey. The joey was about half-grown, too big to push its way into the pouch but still keen to suckle. It’s unusual to see the wallabies out in the daytime but they clearly didn’t feel threatened. The mother was aware of me and kept an eye out but it wasn’t until the joey had finished its breakfast that they moved off, back into the long grass where they seem to spend the daylight hours.

I’m having a quiet day at home. Yesterday was busy, and I didn’t get home until after 9 o’clock. I spend most of the day at Giant Steps where I had promised to do a job for Tim but at 3.15 I had to report to the start of the Grand Parade down the main street of Deloraine. It was a bit chaotic as different aspects of the march had been organised by different people and there seemed to be no-one who understood the whole concept. We were faced with 150 people, a collection of national flags, boards with the various countries’ names on them and banners, apparently made by local school children. There was a pipe band, ready to lead off.

One of our members leapt into the command role and started getting people into line long before the march was to set off. Groups of school children started to arrive and seemed to be there to carry the flags, etc. There was a real melee and doting parents and other hangers-on wanted to take pictures. Some kids knew which team they were supporting, other teams had no one at all – a bit of a mish-mash. The teams looked great. Many were in traditional blazers but New Zealand wore matching fishing gear and the team from Kiribati had wonderful little hats. I don't know the full story of the Kiribati team and don't imagine there are many trout streams on the island. All the team members had at one time been fishing guides at the Captain Cook Resort (wherever that is) and maybe have done their fresh water fishing in New Zealand.

Anyway, the teams which didn’t have children flag bearers were happy to carry their own so it was all coming together. One of the Scottish team saw a little girl, about 7 years old, standing on the footpath with her parents. ‘I want that wee gurrl’, he said to me so I scurried off to talk to her parents. The kid was delighted to get involved and she proudly led the team.

As soon as they were away, I hurried down to the riverbank to pick up my role as waiter. There were four of us listed to do the job but about 9 turned up, which was great. As the marchers arrived, they were given a free glass of wine, or beer. In fact, we had wine donated by Brown Brothers so that was free all evening. The beer was all from small local breweries and, after the first freebie, we had to charge $5 a glass. That wasn’t a worry but the idea of free wine caught the imagination and we ran out. That meant a quick trip to the pub for replenishment. It was a great night and I imagine some of the anglers will have sore heads as they go off to the rivers and lakes for the first day of competition.