Twilight on the Horizon

After helping out at such an awesome and busy event as Less is More, you'd think I'd be hanging up the gazebo for a bit...but no, between my work, my family and my love of community gardening, we lurch on to the next wonderful event. The next one is the Twilight Fair and its a biggie. Its our annual Hilton Harvest celebration and this will be the fourth one, and no doubt the best!

My sister coordinates it and I'm her right hand woman. Its a really fun thing to do together. Sarah gets all fired up about it around November and makes a crazy mindmap of everything we need to do on the back of her kids pre-primary drawings. This becomes our one, precious planning document for the next four months. Generally, the idea is to sort out funding from the City of Fremantle and LotteryWest (which is usually approved no more than three weeks before the event!) and then con a few friendly locals into coordinating stalls, making flyers, baking, singing and dancing on the day. A few hundred emails later and it all falls in to place. And this is what it looks like; community at its best. Fun, free, wholesome, home.

We are super excited to have Wadumbah Indigenous Dance performing this year. They are also doing workshops with the kids at Hilton Primary School beforehand so they can help in the performance on the night - Its going to be fun! 

We also have kids woodworking, craft activities, an awesome pirate, a whole evening of entertainment with various bands, choirs, dancers, and musicians - event a string quartet! There is a scarecrow competition, an 'ask a gardening expert' table and cargo bike rides plus heaps of lovely food. We love our little event and made a conscious decision to keep it small and local. We only allow local, not-for-profit groups to have stalls so you wont find any coke for sale or any corporate plastic give aways. We run our own washing up stand so there is no plastic disposable cutlery or plates. 

Its great for the community to get together to just have a chance and celebrate. We've decided that our aim is not to raise money (though it does add a few grand to the bank account) but its more about getting people into the garden and into the spirit of things. 

I have to be honest and say that its a whole lot of work and Ads and Quin do suffer for the cause - not to mention my housework or my own garden. But to me, its worth it. We want to raise our boy in a community where people know each other and were there is a place to be outside and be creative. Organizing the fair and being involved in the garden makes me talk to heaps of people I would not otherwise even ever meet. It opens doors and makes life richer. And THAT is worth celebrating! Come along if you're in town!