We sat in the middle of the road, drinking mimosas as the wind storm blew around us. We’d arrived early to government house, as we had to purchase tickets at the gate and we wanted to stake out a good spot on the lawns to spread our blankets. It was springtime in sydney, a time of picnics and garden music, and, as we were soon to be reminded, changable weather. What had begun as a hot sunny day, by twelve pm had turned blustery and cold, the change rolling in from the sea. We wondered which gods we’d offended. Still, the wind brought a frission of danger to the excitement that already hung in the air. Would the trees in the gardens blow over and crush us? Many of them had been condemned, rotting from the inside out over the last one hundred years, but who were we to know which ones? The scheduled opening time was delayed for an hour. "It’s too dangerous to let people in right now, things have already blown over." Sound check continued inside, beyond the hedge wall, keeping our hopes high. At the announcment, hundreds left the queue to picnic on the grass next to the wall, but we stayed, drinking mimosas on the road, hoping for the wind to abate.
As the hour passed friends joined us in the queue, sitting and drinking on the sunday afternoon. We made contingency plans, back to ours to eat our picnic, then on to the pub. It was too windy to unpack our food here, our cutlery a threat to the children that toppled around us with each new gust of wind. Soon some inside information from the boyfriend of one of the guys in the band (curses to them for being so attractive! *shakes fist in the air*), the outlook wasn’t hopeful. And then the announcement came; "Unfortunately we’ll have to cancel Garden Music. The wind is too strong and we can’t gaurantee your safety. Apologies." At last, sadly, reluctantly, the crowd began to disperse, and we forsook our place on the ground, our waiting done.
As we walked away, back to the city, we passed him again, the boyfriend of the boy in the band. They were selling the new cd, and the old ones too. I got the new one "Calling Mission Mu." It’s beautiful. "They’re playing at the vanguard next month." "We’ll be there," we replied. We’d missed them last month at the Tilbury because of the rain, and now we’d missed them at Garden Music because of the wind. Let’s hope the Vanguard doesn’t burn down.