Lavish servings of pomp and splendour were delivered from the upper school gym this week as the school had a celebration of its 70th birthday. The end result for the kids in attendance was a remarkable tolerance for speeches that were tedious at best and interminable at worst: for the adults in attendance there was some vague amusement and relevance, but I admired the students patience. They were a captive audience for quite some time! What may have aided their determination was their reward in the end: a yellow or blue cupcake, or, if lucky, a piece of the over-sized super cake that was produced for the day. The highlight in the end was another gravity defying and mind-bending performance from a local Chinese acrobatic group and lion dance: these athletes really are something else and wowed the crowd in their usual show-stealing fashion. Another highlight was the video above: it\s quite slick and shows the amazing development that the school has made in the last 18 years we have been here in particular. Later on, it's here: 70th birthday video of TAS
Well, Wal and I had some pre-grand final celebrations while Cass attended Book Club on Friday night. They went to Kristin's place where nearly all the members eventually attended despite a quite ferocious downpour that saturated all who were out in public at that point. The extended tropical downpour saw Cass and Lisa get partly drenched on their way in and out of Ubers and Wal and I were inching ever closer to the windows of Uli's trying to escape the secondary splashes from the biblical dump. The girls had another great night and thoroughly discussed their book of the month, the superb Australian contemporary classic, Boy Swallows Universe.
The really big day was to follow on Saturday when before the sun crossed the yardarm, I was motoring off to the Patio with my envelopes full of money in hand. Grand Final day in the AFL means a meeting at Patio, a gathering of the clan and a half-time delivery of a short speech and handing out of brickbats and bouquets by me. Everything went well with the delivery despite a few absentees, but the most exciting aspect of all was that the Richmond Tigers won their second premiership in three years!
18 years ago, disappointed that all my new Aussie mates were AFL tragics with little or no interest in rugby league, I was determined to find a team in the AFL and stick with them. Coombsey sourced me a team just like Newcastle he said: the main similarity I could see in the intervening years was their parallel lack of success on the big stage! Anyway, I stuck with them and was finally rewarded two years ago, and again on Saturday when they absolutely annihilated their opponents, Greater Western Sydney, who were playing in their first grand final. We had a wonderful day and celebrated hard.
What a bonus when today, after the alarm went off at its usual shocking hour of 5.30 a.m., Cass checked the email and informed us it was a "Typhoon Day"! This sweetest of days is really a magic day all round. The carrot was dangled by the school's control late last night, but the typhoon looked like it was veering away: we went to bed with scant hope of wondrous news. It's a little silly in reality but do you remember that incredible thrill when school might have been cancelled for some momentous reason, or you were taken out of school for a special appointment? Teachers still get that thrill and we've been reveling in it all day with decadent sleep-ins, watching TV episodes etc. yet still grading our back-log of papers albeit without the pressure of teaching our 5 classes....happy days!!
Photos: snake (!) at camp, Mary and friend, Wal with his beloved pig knuckle and The Moop goes urban! Two last ones from the 70th birthday celebrations and I'm in the last one: can you spot me?!