Katie's Special Day

Friday 20th September, 2013

Happy 12th Birthday Katie!  I hope you have a truly wonderful day celebrating your birthday.

I rang her this morning before school and she has already received some lovely presents by the sounds of it. Tonight she is going to the Movie/Disco and will be celebrating with some friends there and then tomorrow we will be joining her and some of her friends down at the Noarlunga Ten Pin Bowling Centre.

Late yesterday afternoon Tony and I decided to go to the annual Harvest Moon Lantern Festival as part of the OzAsia Festival.  As we wandered down to Elder Park we could feel a few spots of rain.  I'm thinking thank goodness we brought the umbrella with us.

Not long after we got there, the wind picked up, the heavens opened and the rain came down in torrents.  People went scurrying for cover.  Everyone made a beeline for the tents including Tony and I.  As everyone else had the same idea there wasn't too much room in the tents.....they were crammed full. 

The wind would gust under the top of the tent , lift the top up and a cascade of water would come over the edge.........guess who was standing under one of these cascades......ME!!!!  I got wet through, from head to toe.  With the wind blowing I was ffffrrrreezing! 

Looking like a drowned rat and feeling very uncomfortable in my wet clothes we decided to leave.  I wasn't happy about having to walk back through the city to the car sopping wet.  So much for the umbrella!  The wind was so strong it just blew it inside out.  We stopped at the Festival Theatre and had a coffee, thinking that might warm me up and I could dry off a bit.  Nope that didn't work.  Instead I left a big puddle (of water) where we sat.  

We walked to the tram and caught that back to near Tony's work and the car.  Luckily for me I had my coat in the car, so I took off my jacket and top and sat with my coat wrapped around me for the journey home.  Tony cranked the heating up to 29C in the car so that we could both dry out and get warm. 

By the time we got home the skies had cleared up.  Oh well we weren't going back.

This morning I heard on the radio that they had to end up cancelling the Festival and the parade of lanterns as some of the larger lanterns had been damaged by the wind and rain.  They said it was not possible to hold it tonight as there were too many people involved from which to get the OK.  I felt sorry for all the school children who had made lanterns and for the businesses who had set up stalls to sell food and souvenirs.  They were expecting well over 20,000 people to attend.

Now we will have to wait for next years Festival.