365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 58 (Saturday 27 February 2010) : Happy Mardi Gras!!

Man time flies!

Here we are again celebrating the gay and lesbian Mardi Gras Parade once again. We were down numbers this year with Peter being in South America, and Jason staying up in BrizVegas, but that didn't stop the fun! We still had Warren, Ian, John and Brian along for the ride with my gorgeous guy and myself, and we were later joined by the fabulous Tina Fanning who arrived in a burst of yellow and sheer fabulousness.

We started early with a late lunch at 2.30pm at Lumiere Cafe, Bourke Street - I had a beetroot based salad, which was a worry since I was wearing grey camouflage shorts so I ate very carefully! - before walking down to our almost usual spot on Flinders Street. This time, instead of being across from the church, we stood just down from it and instead of dying in the sun, enjoyed the lovely shade of the trees and buildings during the 4 1/2 hour wait from 4pm for the parade to start.

It may sound like a long time to wait, and it is really, but time passes quickly with lots of fun conversation amongst ourselves, and with our volunteer who in this case was a lovely woman called Claire who was working the section we were on, along with her girlfriend. She was English and had a fun personality and a ready wit, joking about the rules and regs she was required to follow like hugging the barricade (see pic below), which was a funny way of saying she needed to stay close to it for some sort of security reason. We also had vodka and orange juice to drink, courtesy of John, lollies to eat, and before the parade proper began, we got to see the traditional Dykes on Bikes and Blokes on Bikes too, who were their usual thunderous best!

The parade proper was not as full-on as in previous years, stopping about 1/2 hour earlier than the usual finish time of 11pm, and it was not as coherently or as well put together as previously. There were highlights - the Lifesavers, Zombie Labour and Rainbow Parents, which featured our friends John and Essie and Stephen with the twins, and we did enjoy all the usual bonhomie and joyful vibe of the event - but ti was missing some of its usual spark, as evidenced by the fact that I stopped cheering at points which never happens. I am usually hoarse the next morning but I wasn't this time.

The major bummer was that my camera battery died for some reason and so I almost missed out on shots of the second half of the parade. Thankfully we had befriended three guys standing just near us, one of whom had a great camera that made it to the end of the parade before it too died a death, and who is sending me his Flickr link to get his photos so crisis averted!

The big highlight of the night though had to be the arrival of Tina Fanning (aka my dear friend, Justin) in blazing yellow. She took a good 20 minutes to reach our position so popular was she with people watching the parade who wanted to photograph her for immortality, and that was only because I went across the road to fetch her and usher her as quickly as her public would allow! I ended up being her handbag and drink holder as we moved very slowly through the throngs of humanity on Oxford Street.

With the parade done, we left the craziness of Oxford Street and made our way back to Newtown where we had a very late dinner at Mickey's on King Street - with an overzealous maitre d' who tried to upsell on everything from alcoholic drinks to bread for entrees in a very unsubtle way! - before heading home and collapsing from exhaustion.

A slighly lacklustre parade aside, we still had a ball soaking up the excitement of the night, and being reminded that being gay is a wonderful gift, that we are part of a strong, vibrant and creative community that has every right to be valued as highly as any other part of society, and that we need to stand strong and tall and fight for that value to be recognised by all people.