commercial drive festival

blogger has this new thing where my words appear at a glacial rate, about half a sentence behind what i'm actually typing. it makes things very difficult. she says, looking fixedly at the dog while she types. he has his paws crossed. how cute!

i went to the commercial drive festival yesterday, with n's household. it was very cool. the drive festival is a car free festival, where they block off the street at each ends and everyone runs free in the middle. there was lots of music and dressups, and local vendors with stalls.


there were roaming fairies with donation buckets, big skipping ropes doing double-dutch, bubble-blowing stations, people driving cardboard buses and lots of political stalls, including our friend v, hung-over at the boycott chapters table. everybody and their dog turned up (i brought chicory for a bit, but he wasn't into the crowds. i'm dogsitting again, just for the weekend), and it was a bit crowded, but most of the crowd were community-minded hippies, so it was all good.


the festival was partly a protest against the highway one expansion, which is the government spending $7 billion on an eight lane freeway which would funnel traffic into *my* nice hippie neighbourhood and take away funding from sustainable public transport. though i've found transit here to be comparable to melbourne. it goes later and feels safer (i don't get hassled very often, which is a nice change), but doesn't go as many places.

where was i? oh, yes. marmots against freeway expansion:
that's the inflatable marmot in the middle there. i'd never heard of such a beast before. small brown furry things, endangered. just like home! for more information on marmots, see here. for more information on the highway, see here.

in keeping with the car free theme, there was the best bike exhibition. it was a "pedalling zoo" with all sorts of weird and wonderful creations you could take for a spin up and down a blocked off section of the street. there were choppers with long front axles, bicycles you had to pedal backwards, very very tall bicycles, etc. ride at your own risk. i had a shot on a tall one, but couldn't get it going.

this one has a second joint in the middle. very tricksy:

we heard a community choir n's sister is involved in, had a bit of a sing-a-long to gospel music and a good dance with the most fabulous percussion band. v satisfactory day.