Bring bring! Bring bring! Who could be calling us at 7.45am the night after the float roll? Uh-oh. It’s the band. They’re at the float and it’s raining. Hard. Cue last ditch trip to the hardware store for miles of plastic sheeting and duct tape…. We ripped off the float’s lantern fittings and turned them in a makeshift roof – too busy to take photos, sorry!
Luckily, by the time Gilles and the other pushers turned up (and Doug there in the background with pineapple mimosas – yum!), the rain had drizzled off. Turn to earn our keep!
Not quite as glamorous as the actual dancers mind…
Here’s Karen and me before we got all sweaty…
And we’re off!
Huge crowd this year – about twice as many as 2009, despite the weather, from our viewpoint.
Just so much fun watching the crowds, enjoying the music, kicking the wooden can-can legs on the float and spinning our very own moulin rouge! 
Here I am again! A bit more tired this time, just before I took over back at the front – and promptly dumped the float into a pothole. I broke the pushing pole extracting it but no real harm done.
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By the time we got to Gasworks Park (about 3pm), we were utterly cream-crackered. Too tired even to enjoy the bands, beer garden, boozed up hippies and all the other paraders…
In fact, we got right to work dismantling the float and getting it ready for another 11 months back under Ballard Bridge.
All in all, a really fantastic day – roll on 2011!
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