Festivals And Footy

Monday 1st October, 2012

Crikey, October already!  Three more months and we'll be in 2013.  Time is flying by and even when children comment about how fast the year is going, then it must be passing us by at a rapid rate.

This past weekend was a long weekend here.  We were due to have Katie come and stay but when I rang on Friday to make arrangements to pick her up she said that she wasn't going to come as they were going to a bar-b-que at her friends Maddis' place on Saturday afternoon and she would be sleeping over.

That was OK with me.  Many times I have told her if ever she gets the chance to go to friends places, to do that instead of hanging with us oldies.

Saturday ended up being a quiet day for Tony and I.  We went out for dinner with Robyn and Bob.  On Sunday was the Moon Lantern Festival as part of the Oz Asia Festival.  The weather was looking ominous. Cloudy, overcast and cool.  Later in the afternoon the sun came out and so we decided that we would go.

It wasn't too bad, the weather that is.  We got a couple of sprinkles of rain and once the sun went down it got cool but not real cold.  At least there was no wind.  

The pre-parade entertainment was entertaining.  Lots of dancers and this year the focus country was India and so there was lots of Bollywood.

The parade of lanterns was great, but being school holidays and a long weekend not too many schools were represented.
They still estimated the crowd to be somewhere around 20,000.

Fireworks ended the night.

This morning Tony and I were having a lovely sleep in and the phone rang.  It was Katie.  She was just letting us know that the Slowdown was on today and did we remember.  Seeing it was 9.30 am I thought that maybe it was too late to go but she didn't think it was.

So we quickly got up, showered and dressed and left.  We left the car at work and caught the tram down to Glenelg.  This year the Slowdown was being played at the Glenelg Oval.  We met Katie and Kahra at the Oval.  

The Slowdown is a football game made up of past players from the Adelaide Crows and usually is played against past players from Port Power.  This year they were playing the past players from Collingwood (a team from Victoria).  There is also a few celebrities in the teams and this year the Crows had Sam Willoughby, silver medallist BMX rider from the Olympic games, and Matthew Cowdrey, a Paralympian Swimmer and also Australia's all time highest gold medal winner.   

Between these two players they kicked 9 goals and played really well.  All monies raised from this football game go to the Little Heroes Foundation, an organisation that helps sick kids with terminal illnesses. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, lots of sunshine and around 18C.

Pre-match entertainment was sporting clinics for the kids, acrobatic teams, dancers and sky jumpers.

Tony and Katie enjoyed the half time and full time 'kick the footy' on the oval.  Kahra met us to pick Katie up and Tony and I caught the tram back into the city, got the car and came home.  For a day that was planned as doing nothing turned out to be a good day.