Carols by Candlelight.

The weekend started well on Friday evening when Brian's cousin, her partner and their son came over to babysit and let us have a night off. It was the best Christmas present they could have given us. We headed for Fremantle to the Little Creatures brewery for some food and delicious beer. How good it felt to be out walking through town on a Friday evening, specially as the World Sailing Championships have been on down in Freo for the last couple of weeks so there was a bit of a buzz. We decided that we haven't done enough as a couple recently (read "nothing at all") and determined to get a babysitter and go out at least once a month for our new years resolution.

For the rest of this weekend we've been keeping busy getting organised for our big camping trip. I say getting organised when I really mean doing random bits such as fitting the roof-rack to the car and figuring out how best to fix all the bikes to the bike rack. I don't feel very much more organised at all but I'm sure it will all come together on Thursday night in a panic as usual.

Then last night we went back to Freo for the second time this week for a wonderful carol concert. Probably the strangest carol concert I've ever seen, coming from the northern hemisphere where we expect to be indoors trying to keep warm. Friends from the school were coming too and had warned us to get there early so we could all find a spot. We queued with our picnic rugs, esky's(cool boxes), and bottles of wine, and then streamed into the gardens of Fremantle Arts Centre, picking up the programme/ word sheet as we went. After an hour or so wholly devoted to eating, drinking and chatting to friends in the warm evening, the sun started to go down and the carols began.

Pic of the stage (taken with my phone so no such features as zoom).

 With traditional carols such as "Silent Night" and "Deck the Halls" mixed with childrens favourites like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer we all had a good sing along, even if we couldn't see the words as it got darker! I was also introduced to an Aussie favourite called "Six White Boomers" which was great fun and was astonished when Alfie sang his heart out in the chorus as he'd learnt it at school!

Children by (battery operated) candlelight!

The evening ended around 8pm and we were just packing up our belongings when "Boom" a firework went off. Clearly the sailing championships were also at an end, and we got full advantage of their tremendous fireworks display for the best part of another half hour.
What a beautiful end to a wonderful evening. And I think I'm starting to feel rather more Christmassy at last.