Shouts From Down Under

Dear World Population; you heard it here first...

*

I began the first entry of this blog, my first ever blog, incidentally,

BOOK

Shouts From Down Under   (13+) Some of the strangest things forgotten by that Australian Blog Bloke. 2014 #1944136 by Sparky

saying something like, Dear Everyone, basically the entire Globe's population.

Well, this entry starts off the same way.

Dear People of Earth, and any space monkeys. (plus the odd rat)

We are only a matter of hours away from that time of celebration for many, Christmas.

Santa Claus has been spotted already, scouting ahead, putting out fuel drops around the place, fodder, spare cargo safety nets, iPhone batteries and packages containing panadols, antihistamine tablets and of course bottled H2O, in Australia, probably his second or third stop after New Zealand and all those islands this side of the international date line.

Yes, in preparation for this coming event, we also scouted ahead. It came to pass, on Saturday afternoon the fourteenth day of the month of December, the year of our Lord two thousand and thirteen, we all evacuated our peaceful home and embarked on a rare family outing, minus our younger son, who is now living and working in Melbourne.

(It's too expensive to sail or fly across Bass Strait, whenever he feels like it, so it was the four of us, plus our eldest son's girlfriend, to go and check out Santa's route down through the main shopping precinct of our community.)

We drove and parked down the street in Ulverstone, the town where we live, here in Tasmania, close enough to walk to the main street. We stood and waited, not far from the Memorial town clock. This is where you come on ANZAC day to remember the fallen in war. This is the spot I wrote about in

STATIC

Answer me! Please tell me the answer...!  (13+) Is everyone in your family happy? Are you sure? You'd better check. Do it now. Run! #1921419 by Sparky

, but today they didn't play the Last Post.
No, today was different.

Today was the local Christmas parade. It restores my faith in humanity, in the concept of families, cameraderie, love even, when I see gatherings like this. And this time it seemed like every man and his dog (wife and kids too) were there.
Perhaps it's a sign of how bad the economy is, or was it just because people are learning to value their own. Cancer. Accidents. Illness. Joblosses. You could go on all day about the less than cheerful aspects.

So, there we all were, eh?(common aussie interjection), for what seemed like a useless exercise in one sense. Watching people we all knew, drive vehicles with tinsel and other stuff on them, fooling no one, but bringing smiles and joy to little faces everywhere.

Oh it was grand. And I say that without one bit of sarcasm folks. I'm as redblooded and macho as the next Aussie on the pavement, but these times when I see the kids all out in the little terry towelling hats, or caps, down on their hands and knees scrabbling for lollies on the asphalt street, and the band all sweating in their thick inappropriate suits, it brings a tear to my eye. Seriously. It really does.

There's the fellers around me with their families, there's the ones who don't have anybody, just them, there's people with alternative views (and I say this without any predjudice whatsoever, everyone should be there, with their views, that's what freedom is, unless it's those individual crazy people who want to blow everyone up. Not on in my book, sorry, but your passion for your beliefs is noted)

I wanted this blog to express all this in a sincere greeting to everyone here on writing dot com. This means you from the SM and SMs through to the person who just made an account right now, tomorrow even.

I tried to capture it in my mind. The excitement, the band marching, the kiddies, the ahoys, the laughing, the wise cracks, the Aussieness, getting the drop on Santa even if he was sneaking around the place incognito, hiding in trucks, riding bicycles, driving tractors, moving curtains in the back of caravans. We were onto him! I tell you. And be on notice. He's on his way and shouldn't break down with all the prep work and pit stop readiness.

Yes, I tried to capture it in my mind, but nah, a video hardly does it justice, but here it is.
So, without further ado, have a safe and very pleasant Christmas. If this is a bit early then sorry. I'll forget otherwise.



PS. I was a bit flustered during filming; re the huge pause in panning, after seeing the bush fire brigade truck, I'm not sure why they made me uncomfortable, even if my name is a bit...

Sparky

*My new Blog photo belongs to Peter Mann who posted it on FaceBook on the site StationPhotos. It belongs to him and I acknowlege it is his and his alone. I'm just borrowing it for a short time because 'roos need to be supported in their cause, exposed to the world population, awareness raised of their plight...more Christmas presents, please!