Obviously
the residents of North Millers Dale are enthusiastic wine drinkers, testified
by the number of corks dangling from bush-hats. Also, as astonishing, was the
display of knees appearing beneath the distinctly unseasonable khaki shorts.
Despite the absence of any true representatives of the Australasian continent
the Northern Hemisphere partygoers enjoyed an evening of fun and food with an
Aussie theme.
The
event was a bit early in the year to include a traditional Aussie Barbie but
instead Bridget and Doreen worked hard and unaided to produce a delicious
three-course meal for the forty residents filling the hall on the night of
Saturday 26th of April. The menu was an inventive mix of Billabong Shrimps
to start, Jumbuck in Chilli Barbie Sauce with rice and salad as the main and
Pavlova with Antipodean fruit to finish.
As well as preparing the food Doreen and Bridget still found time to decorate the hall, thus providing the atmosphere to help the evening go with a swing. Crocodiles, kangaroos, aboriginal art and gladiolas were in evidence elegantly distributed around the hall!
In
between the courses there were three quiz rounds entitled ‘The Great
Outdoors’, ‘The Australian Culture Quiz?’ and an ‘Australian
Music Quiz’. Quite a lot of Internet research was required to find evidence
of Australian culture and a reasonable number of Australian singers and bands!
As usual some residents proved that the level of trivia stored in their brains
was remarkable and some very good scores were achieved. Each of the quiz rounds
were preceded by an oddly quirky video clip.
In addition to the main quiz, a table quiz of three rounds featuring animals and famous people pictures plus place name anagrams kept the brains active at other times. Groups of four and six members made up the teams and loosely applicable Australian team names were selected. Perhaps the most apt was the team who decided to call themselves the ‘Neighbours’ team.
No Australian night would be complete without reference to
one of the cultural heroes that all Australians must be rightly proud of;
Rolf Harris CBE. Ours was no
exception and so towards the end of the evening we conjured up the spirit
of this great man by our very own ‘Can you tell what it is yet?’
painting contest, which took the form of a sort of artistic charades with
wide house painting brushes being used to illustrate randomly selected subjects
against the clock. After the liberal consumption of the amber nectar, this
proved an entertaining finale to a very enjoyable evening.
