Floristry lessons have begun

Not much more to say really excpet that tomorrow’s my second lesson and I’m soooo looking forward to it. I came home last Saturday on a natural high after feeling all inspired in our first lesson. all we did was wrap a pot plant (which I’ve already managed to kill), learn a bit about pricing in a flower shop (300% mark up plus GST), and make a hand tied bouquet with some of my least favourite flowers (orange lillies and red gerberas…). More hand tied practice tomorrow, then next week up well beofre dawn cracks to go to the markets…problem is that day is also mardi gras…so it’s going to be a loooooong day followed by a looooong night. Supidly, baba and I impulsivelybooked ourselved on a 9am flight to Cairns the sunday morning straight after MG. The plan being, leave the party around 6 or 7, head home for a shower and a bite to eat and jump in a cab to the airport…never mind the fact that I won’t have slept for well over 24 hours. i was only young once. Now it’ll take me six months to recover!

Gurlesque

OK, this innocent poof is recovering after seeing a lot of vaginas last night at Gurlesque.

Gurlesque is a lesbian strip/burlesque show that has been running in Sydney for 8 years. Previously, the audiences were strictly women only, but last night they opened the doors (and a helluva lot more!) to people with penises.

My favourite quote of the night was from a 60 year old performer who has made stripping and burlesque her career (including being arrested a number of times in america for crimes with silly names like corrupting the morals of the population of Last Ditch, Texas). She was having difficulty speaking into the microphone and said something along the lines of “Sorry, I’m a bit shy with the microphone. It’s actually much easier for me to stand here on stage and pop my vagina”. The room roared with laughter!

There were many other truly hilarious moments. These women are extremely talented entertainers the show was very much about entertainment rather than titilation.

The show was part of the Mardi Gras festival. It epitomised for me the Spirit of Mardi Gras; naughty, sexy, fun and irreverent.

Happy Mardi Gras.

Floristry…here I come

Well it had to happen sooner or later. I’ve signed the contract and enrolemt forms to start the Pearsons School of Floristry commercial design course. The first class is on Saturday week. Then, just about every saturday for the rest of the year I can say goodbye to my leisurly morning at home with baba, a latte, croissant and the weekend papers. Instead I’ll be letting my creative juices ooze out as I play with lovely blooms. (And getting up at about the time when I should really just be going to bed to go out to the markets…that’s going to be an experience; walking down Oxford St at 4am stone, cold, sober, on my way to the station to get the train out to the markets).

My floristry experience will start a couple of days before the first day of class. I’m working with my local florist on Valentines day. He says working valentines day might turn me off floristry altogether!! We’ll see.