I do like a good fête. What’s not to like? It entertains the kids, often in a familiar environment. Interesting food, the smell of clover daisies and freshly cut grass, bringing the community together. . . Last weekend I took the girls to a church fête where they had a go at some medieval rope and stick games and played the apparently centuries-old ‘whack the rat’ (quite a violent concept involving a ‘rat’ made of a stuffed, square of material which is slid down a tube that you have to whack with a stick. Lara got a certificate of achievement for having the reflexes to hit one before it dived off the table). That fête has fishing in an ornamental pond using magnetic fishing rods and a petting zoo too, in a lovely contained setting.
Yesterday I took them to a local school fête where Oli and his scout group helped make a huge maze of boxes using polling boxes taped together with around 17 rolls of packing tape. The girls joined many other kids spending more than an hour diving in and popping out. I wanted to have a go but I wouldn’t have fitted in.
I chatted with a few people I knew, rifled through the secondhand book stall where I picked up some books for Rhea and Lara, and bought a parsley pot and some odds and ends from the craft stall. The girls got their faces painted by a child and a father and we shared a woodfired pizza made onsite by a team of overweight dads, before dashing off to Lara and Rhea’s old preschool fête for its last half hour. I managed to deposit some puzzles they have outgrown and pick up a few more books and cupcakes, more chatting, nice under the shade.
We were too late for fairy floss, which I didn’t mind given its high sugar content. I bought a huge stick of it last year for Lara and I remember sending a photo of Lara holding it to Kay, who didn’t reply – she was getting too sick. The girls played in their old playground and I let them stay longer so they could enjoy it again. Big girls in kindergarten now.
Meanwhile as this goes on, the US Presidential election date approaches with its battle between the disenfranchised and the moderates, and the momentum for change in Australian refugee policy builds stronger as more peoples’ stories come out. Pauline Hanson is back in Federal Parliament, and as the gap between rich and poor, empowered and disempowered grows, so does the spread in radicalised thinking and terrorism. A tram begins its long journey to being built in Canberra – but Australia’s climate change policy turns its back on science and evidence and the Great Barrier Reef faces serious threat from this and from the threat of mining on its doorstep. As Sir David Attenborough said, do we care so little for our environment and the plants and animals that live within it, that we don’t wish to protect one of its greatest wonders from the consequences of our behaviour.
I just do my little bit, going to refugee rallies, signing petitions, donating money to progressive organisations, and teaching our children to solve problems, have good self-esteem and to respect each other so that they are well equipped to handle the challenges we will be passing on to them. We get by, and the world is holding together for now. I try to enjoy the moments – as children do so well.
