Sparrow Lorelei and Robin Artemis photo gallery

Port Lincoln and the National Druid Assembly, 5-11 October 2011
Day 2 and 3: Druid Assembly part 1

Return to Robin's index - Return to Sparrow's index

Thursday evening

We arrived at Cooringal Grove outside Port Lincoln late Thursday afternoon. The evening went to settling in, meeting old and new friends, having dinner by candlelight, and time around the campfire.

Friday

There was a lot of relaxing and just hanging around time on Friday, though nominally it was filled with creative activities. Sparrow and James went into town for a play, early lunch and nap while I did the Bardic circle with the other druids and Robin. Then there was lots more just doing stuff and exploring the farm and gardens. Sparrow was filled with glee at the outdoor kitchen - cupboards full of interesting stuff just waiting for her. I had glee at the outdoor kitchen too - I'd love one - but I had to disappoint Sparrow and not permit her to rearrange all the dishes. Ngatina and I set up a toy space for the two baby boys (Robin and Aurelius) to sit in and play, but they ended up not spending a great deal of time in it. Books and toys just got used all over the place, wherever we happened to be. Sparrow tended to be back and forth a lot, especially with the dogs around (who she loved).

We took a walk down to their fruit trees, to pick mandarins and tangelos. It was a little bit far for Sparrow, who started asking to "go back to the people" when we were just over half way, then started being cheeky about continuing on and finally refused to go any further when we were just coming in sight of the trees. So it didn't work out as well as it could have. But it was a nice long walk and explore and time outside with trees and grass and dirt. And she was bribable with being carried.

Then, as the evening began, there were costumes. People spent the afternoon fixing and making costumes and slowly getting dressed while dinner cooked, then very late that evening there was a story to begin the feast. (Sparrow spent the whole story saying "Mummy, *dinner*".) We all enjoyed the feast, but the accidental timing of things meant that the Eisteddfod that would normally have followed the feast seemed to sort of dissipate amidst the sound of very sleepy people. We fed Sparrow and put her pretty much straight to bed afterwards as dinner wasn't served until after her bedtime! But I think she enjoyed the costumes. We would have had seaweed dresses of our own but I forgot to pack them. Instead we made some masks, me thinking that she would enjoy wearing a mask more than anything anyway. Sparrow helped me make the mask that she was holding, tearing the bits of tissue paper for me while I stuck them on - she is a purple fish, and I guess I am more seaweed. Unfortunately she didn't get the bit about *stopping* tearing, so she didn't get to wear her mask more than once or twice...