365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 30 (Saturday 30 January 2010) : Sonoma, Costuma, Invictus

I know the subject line sounds some of bastardised, poorly-worded Latin phrase....but it's not.

What it is, is a pithy summation of today which turned out to be far busier and more exhausting than I'd envisaged.

First up, my beautiful guy and I drove to Waterloo to try and find a costume for our fabulously themed event, Toyland, at Mardi Gras's Fair Day on the 21st. But the store didn't opne till 11 a.m. so he and I and our very good friend, Brett, filled in the time waiting with food and coffee at Sonoma cafe (see above).

Sadly , once the store opened, neither of us found an outfit, with inspiration being as thin on the ground as straight boys without a beer in their hand at the pub, but I at least managed to get some inspiration although it will take some work yet to realise my vision of Knob the builder, a gay parody of you know who. We do have some ideas for my gorgeous guy, which thankfully do not now include the brightly coloured and insanely warm (he would cook in the heat of Victoria Park) outfit shown in the picture below.

After 2 very long hours wandering back and forth through the shop, we ended up at the Last Drop cafe with Bill and Ian and effectively had a planning meeting for Fair Day with some great ideas flying thick and fast including a very racy business card for Knob the Builder and suggestions for his toolbox contents which include items most tradesmen (bar the gay ones) wouldn't recognise from their day to day work. Great fun, great food, and great company! (My guy, Bill and Ian are deep in planning in the photo below).

We went back to my beautiful guy's place and crashed for a while before heading out that night to meet up with good friends, Stephen, and Justin, for dinner at the Fox and Lion before seeing Invictus, a wonderfully inspired piece of film making by Clint Eastwood, centred on the 1995 Rugby World Cup, which thanks to the idealism and prgmatism of Nelson Mandela became a watershed moment in South Africa's post-Apartheid era. It was particularly poignant watching it with my close friend, Justin, who is South African and lived through the events portrayed in the film, and who was profoundly moved by what he saw.

We left Fox Studios at 11pm as the crowds were surging into the Hordern Pavilion for Tiesto and I gave thanks that I was going home to crash and burn in the loving arms of my beautiful guy.... yeah I know I am getting older but frankly I don't mind one bit.....