The Lost Hour - July 31, 2006

We have just returned home from the wierdest event ever. Tonight, Elliott was required to go to school and sing in the choir. The kids did a few songs, but the main event was a handbell concert. Oh my goodness. The Carilloneers from Claremont United Church of Christ in Claremont, CA have come all the way to Brisbane to participate in the International Festival of Handbell Ringers. By making the kids come and sing, the group is guaranteed an audience - otherwise I'm sure no one would actually turn up.

It was the most tortuous evening we have ever spent. As Tim so aptly put it, "That's an hour of my life I'll never get back." We were confronted with a dozen enthusiastic bell ringers - think Salvation Army Christmas bell ringers run amock - performing tunes such as Somewhere over the Rainbow and Yankee Doodle Dandy. After an hour, the audience was literally in a slack jawed stupor. When the conductor announced they were doing an encore, a gasp resounded thru the building. Luckily, the encore was a rendition of Waltzing Matilda. The song brought about the first signs of life in the crowd - even the naughty 12 year old boys sitting in front of us started to sing along to the tune. I think Waltzing Matilda should be the national anthem. We are very grateful the International Handbell Ringers Festival will not return to Australia for 12 more years. I think it will take us that long to recover.

Our other noteworthy, or not so noteworthy event, was a trip out to Toowoomba. The town of Toowoomba is in the Darling Downs, and is about 150 km west of Brisbane. We happened to go out on the day the town was holding a referendum about using recycled wastewater as drinking water. Opponants of the idea were calling Toowoomba "Poo-woomba". I guess enough of these negative campaigns influenced people and the vote was NO to using re-cycled waste in the drinking supply. We had a spot of rain in Brisbane last week, but inland is even drier. The future of water supply and management will be very interesting to follow in the next few years as there is still no sign of the crisis resolving. I guess I bring the water up a lot in the blog, but is an important topic of discussion whenever people get together.

Still having problems with the photos, but will try again to sort those out....one day....