WOMADELAIDE
Here I am at Womadelaide in 2011. I am in the middle of a bunch of hippies and they are ALL wearing sandals. I was getting a bit scared as they did not notice me and if one of them fell over from exhaustion, I would have been squashed big time. I love going to that festival 'cause everyone is so nice and friendly and they don't think I am strange, even though I think most of the BIG PEOPLE who go there are.
Here'a a picture of me dancing to the music. As you can see, I have to spread my legs, otherwise I'd fall over. I like dancing on BIG PEOPLE'S tummies as it is like being on a trampoline. Not that I have ever been on one, but I would like to try it one day. We were there for three days and by the end of the festival I was soooooo dirty and tired from all the loud music and the BIG PEOPLE. I just wanted to get home and go back in the cupboard and sleep for three days to make up for it. Here is a picture of me looking over the crowd. I think I look tired (and grubby) don't you? By the way, thank-you Auntie Lisa for sending me these photos.
Here I am again at Womadelaide in 2015. I had actually missed going the past three years as I was off seeing the world, but some things never change. We flew to Adelaide (where cuz J'Arrod comes from) and stayed at a smashing hotel in the night club area before heading off for four days of music and dancing and eating and drinking. There were so many good bands there as usual and I particularly liked The Malawi Mouse Boys 'cause they used to sell barbecued mice on skewers. I never got to ask the boys if they dipped them in honey first. I met up with my best pal Bur. He was there with his DADs and we sat on the grass chatting as the hippies danced around us. It was soooooo good to see my buddy again as we always have a good time. We got in to some serious drinking. Bur likes to gulp (like MUM) and 'cause he is only little, he doesn't hold his liquor very well. The weather was warm, the music was wonderful and as you can see in this photo, it was all too much for we bears and we ended up hibernating. Well, the truth is, we passed out from all the excitement. I ended up joining the Holi ceremony and got covered in pink powder. I was soooooo grubby, MUM wouldn't let me back in her bag, so I had to plonk my head in a pizza box to try and shut out the noise. By day three, I had enough of all the singing and dancing and everyone being so nice and giving me cuddles. I just wanted to get home and back into the cupboard to hang out with the family. I was missing them heaps. In this next picture, you can see everyone getting covered in Holi powder. I reckon our hotel ran out of bleach trying to get the powder off all their towels and sheets. MUM even tried to send me to the hotel laundry 'cause I was soooooo grubby, but I soon put a stop to that. She can be very cruel sometimes. Hopefully the BIG PEOPLE will be too old to go to the festival next year. |
It is March 2016 and once more I have been dragged here to Womad, but I have to admit, not under sufferance. It is the bestest festival ever and it means that I miss skool for a couple of days, so who's going to complain about that? Here's a picture of me lying down exhausted after looking through the program. I am so excited because there are so many different acts to watch and I am also going to run into my two best buddies Bur and Kenny.
MUM taught me at a very early age not to expect and then you won't get disappointed. Here's a re-union picture of me and Bur catching up with all our news and having a celebratory drink. You may well ask, "where's Kenny?" Well, as MUM said...
Is this Kenny in disguise we asked ourselves? Noooooo, it turns out that Auntie Lisa has lost him. We were devastated and tried to contain our disappointment by getting into the swing of things.
We hung out for the afternoon with a couple of old hippies we met at the bar. They gave us funny cigarettes which we smoked behind the portaloos. Bur kept yelling out, "where is our friend, he's been bear-napped". I kept telling Bur that Kenny is a koala and therefore not a real bear. That led to a real meltdown. Fortunately, before things got too messy, we both started to laugh our heads off and everything started to look mighty colourful.
If you look really closely in front of the stage you can see me and Bur right down the front hanging out with all the cool dudes. We danced all night and I got a mighty clip around the ears when we staggered back to our hotel. I think that's why Bur's ears are a bit bald too. We had a smashing time and hope that Auntie Lisa finds Kenny so he can go next year. Maybe she needs to check her local St Vinnie's shop in case she accidentally gave him away. Ouch!
If you look really closely in front of the stage you can see me and Bur right down the front hanging out with all the cool dudes. We danced all night and I got a mighty clip around the ears when we staggered back to our hotel. I think that's why Bur's ears are a bit bald too. We had a smashing time and hope that Auntie Lisa finds Kenny so he can go next year. Maybe she needs to check her local St Vinnie's shop in case she accidentally gave him away. Ouch!
Well, here I am back at WOMAD, in 2021, after taking a break for a few years. We had to sit in social-distancing seats, so thankfully my paws didn't get bruised from old hippies dancing on the grass. As you can see, we had a great view and we were not far from the bar, which was also a plus. Unfortunately, my pals Bur and Kenny were nowhere to be seen, but I managed to have a smashing time anyway.
On the first night we saw Tash Sultana. My fur is still tingling from watching her play twenty instruments. She is the BEST! The next night we saw Midnight Oil perform their latest album, The Makarrata Project. MUM was so excited when she met the lead singer, Peter Garrett, in the lift at our hotel. She wishes he was our PM, instead of the current one, whose name we don't like to mention.
Imagine my surprise when I saw not only Bur but Kenny as well! Here is a pic of the three of us catching up with all the news. Kenny told us that he went missing for a long time as he hid under a mattress during the pandemic. He looked a bit squashed and he had become very political in 'iso' as you can see from the slogan on his sleeping bag!
We had the bestest time swapping stories about the BIG PEOPLE and discussing all the places we hadn't travelled to in the past two years. In the end we agreed with this slogan on Auntie Lisa's t-shirt. |
Bur and I started off social distancing but we got carried away and, as you can see, old habits don't die. We had our usual drinking competition and ended up throwing up all over MUM's new bag. Kenny just sat there shaking his head and stayed in his sleeping bag. Bur's DADs were not amused as they think I am a bad influence on him. However, he told me that he loves being naughty and I am the bestest pal he has ever had. We spent the next three days practising our new dance moves and watching all the BIG PEOPLE having a smashing time.
We tried to find the old hippies we hung out with the last time we were together but we think they may have ended up in an old peoples' home and not allowed out anymore. Or maybe they are in rehab and this is a pic of one of them.
Well, here we are back at WOMAD again in 2023. This year was lots of fun as always as there were flying thingys everywhere. As you can see in this first picture, I thought it was MUM - ouch! Then in the next picture you can see they were real feathers and they were dropped from trapeze artists all over the park. The last picture is one of me lying on the ground wishing I still had my wings and I could fly off on another adventure.
I caught up with my pals Bur and Kenny. We pretended to have a coffee clutch but it wasn't long before we got into the brewskies as the stories we shared got even crazier. In this last picture you can see I managed to cover my baldies with feathers...
WOMAD is always fun and this year there were really weird BIG PEOPLE walking around with buckets on their heads. I think they may have had worms and the buckets stopped them from biting their bottoms.
Well, it is 2024 and here we are again at WOMAD, my favourite place and the one I have visited the most. The crowd is starting to arrive to see Ziggy Marley - one of MUM's favourite singers - until she found out that he performed at a concert he shouldn't have, which donated money to a group it shouldn't have... but, that's another story.
If you look closely at the top right of this picture, you can see me hovering over the WOMAD image which is famous. Lion's voices can be heard from 8 kilometres away - a bit like Ziggy himself, especially when he sang "One Love"... which is a call for peace and unity for people with different religious and political beliefs. I can only hope that it is true,
This year there were angels roaming around and at night they lit up and danced with the crowd. I met up with my best pal BUR, but, as you can see, we were a bit sad because Kenny didn't turn up again this year. We heard that he went to Japan instead. We found this rainbow cloth and wrapped ourselves in it like a kimono and sang "One Love" hoping that Kenny was doing the same on the other side of the world.