Bushfest 2019 – We didn’t blow away

I spent all week watching the weather forecast. Clicking, repeatedly on Saturday in Bothwell, hoping that the forecast would change.

But no. There it was. “Winds: 40kmph. Occasional showers…”

“We can cancel if we need to…” I said. “If it’s awful when we get there, we can just come home…”

Highlands Bushfest is on every year at Bothwell, a lovely initiative by the Central Highlands Council to get more people to the town – even if it’s only for a weekend.

And there we were, booked as stallholders, with ridiculous wind forecast. Nothing fucks a marquee faster than wind, and we were still considering going.

All the sentiments in the world – we can just leave if its too bad – ignores how hard it actually is, both to set up and pack down an event. Let alone to do those things in the middle of Weather. And in any case, spoiler alert: We Did Not Leave.

Even when we looked at the marquee, with its walls bowing and twisting, and made the decision to pull down the walls, letting the wind rush through, we did not leave. Even when we knew that the roof had to come off if we had any hope of saving the marquee bones itself. We did not go home.

Mum – Kim Foale Ceramics – stood there and served customers as I wrestled down the walls. She held the marquee at its centre to stop it moving, and hoped for the best, as the customers were three deep, seemingly oblivious to the fact I was trying to prevent sure disaster (a broken marquee is both dangerous and expensive).

And so I ripped the walls down, and took the roof off ON MY OWN, which is no mean feat with wind gusts of 80kmph and a roaring gale rushing through. While husbands of customers watched, and women shopped, and I did not hit anyone in the face with my marquee roof, and my marquee did not break and bow and bend and smash into all the brand new display cars parked opposite me.

Afterwards, when we spoke to other stallholders, this was a common theme. A few marquees broke, a few lost their roof canvas, a few buckled entirely, shattered and broken. And still the people wanted to buy things in the middle of disaster.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful for how well we did – but I dislocated my shoulder and collarbone, popped them back in, and still took my roof and sides off while people watched like I was the entertainment of the weekend.

We worked the rest of the day under a naked marquee frame, in the roaring wind. A running joke: “You lost your roof didya?” Laugh. Slightly less funny: “No, we took it off before everything broke.”

Oh. The two women working alone: Sensible. Surprising. Also: Lucky – some other marquees buckled a lot faster than ours did, leaving their owners no choice in the matter.

I am still incredibly windburned. So windburned.

It was an excellent weekend, wind notwithstanding. I enjoy talking to locals, and country women are my favourite women. (Sorry everyone else)

But: The comedown after a big weekend event is intense. We traded both days, and today, while I’m exhausted, I’m also twitchy and feeling like I ought to be doing more than writing a blog post and adding progressively more moisturiser to my windburned cheeks. After the intensity of the weekend and the work, to be home today feels odd. Not bad, just odd.

Markets are a particular kind of hard work. I tell people “I worked a market this weekend and I am exhausted” and I’m not sure they really understand just how exhausting it can be.

But! Wind aside. We had an excellent weekend.

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