Day Seven - Sydney Mardi Gras 2020

The big day has arrived.  I saw Mardi Gras being streamed live three years ago and told myself that I was going to go there one day, and here I am.  It seemed the right place to be for my exciting year of being 29 again!  Those of you who

know me will know the LGBTQI+ community have been dear to my heart since I was 15 when I watched the Naked Civil Servant played by the brilliant John Hurt and remember thinking to myself, this is not right, this is not fair.  People are who they are full stop!  That was my 'gay' awakening and here we are all these years later.  I remember my friend coming out to me when I was 27, thinking he was going to ask me out!  I have never had to come out.  That is is my straight privilege.  the 1980s were a terrible time for the community and that is why I wanted to base my dissertation on that period.  Last night, as I stood in the Stonewall Hotel, I had a moment. I stood there, looking around, seeing people being themselves, enjoying the evening and once again, I got a tad emotional.  Life is short. We all should be living our best life. Not living in fear. Not pretending to be someone who we really are not. I feel very blessed having so many dear friends, from all over the world, from all social constructed sexualities and today, when I watch the Mardi Gras I will probably have another moment as I reflect on those people, for whatever reason, are not here or who can not live their true life.  Let us all be kinder to each other.

Stuart come to our place and sat around just waiting for the time.  We went to get some dinner, which was not very exciting, they really do not do vegan here. It reminds me the early days of being vegetarian when people did not really get it.  So I had a vegan type pizza and we went down to stake our claim in the

parade.  Sydney is different to London in so many ways.  Firstly, it starts in the evening when it is cooler and secondly it is far more organised and choreographed.  There were over 12500 people walking in the parade, but before it started something totally blew me away.  Just as the sun was setting thousands, and I mean thousands, of bats, fruit bats made their way from their daytime home in the park up to the botanical gardens near the Opera House.  My friend Stuart, who comes from the suburbs of Sydney, but now lives ten minutes down the road form me, said the the fruit bats are the bane of is fathers life a they come and eat the mangoes from his tree. I could not believe how many of them there were and it took them a good 90 minutes to fly past us. I know this is not going to make any sense but they just looked like bats!  It really was a strange thing to see. 

The parade started as it always does with Dykes On Bikes then Boys on Bikes.  I have to say, the girls had it far better organised than the boys ...... no surprises there then. Then the parade was off.  I got speaking to Tracey who was one of

the many volunteers helping out.  Some of the floats were amazing with so much effort going into them.  Most of the people had a little dance routine they did and the whole thing run smoothing; unlike London that drags on and on!  London Pride could learn a lot from Sydney Mardi Gras.  Stuart had tickets to the after party and for some reason Andy and I decided not to buy any (I think it was because they were so expensive).  I thought we were going for a drink, but Andy was tired so we just went home.  Bit of an anti climax really, especially as I could hear everyone partying outside of the window. Hey such is life.  I am sure Stuart had a good evening.

As always, with my love x