JAFA 2011 - Sunday Program

It was a blessfully late start to the day. It made for a lovely morning, a slight sleep in and an easy breakfast before packing up our picnic food, popping on our gowns and heading to the park. We started off the morning with a costumed promenade. We had a very large assembly of costumers that proceeded to stroll around the grounds of the park before heading back to the chessboard for some light dancing. I thought the chessboard dance that they did was lovely and would have really liked to learn how it was done. Obviously you need enough people to fill all the chessboard places.

We finished the morning off with a full picnic, some chatting and pit of photography. It was a lovely park and a not-too-hot or cold sort of day, but I was a little disappointed in the picnic location. There were only a couple park benches located a long way from the main group. It made it difficult for those of us who had travelled interstate and were not comfortable sitting on the ground in our costumes (not easy in Georgian). I did try to wrap up against the sun as well, which turned out to be a good thing as the shifting sun left very little shade.

But after filling ourselves with picnic goodness, we headed back to the hall for an afternoon assembly and some dancing. By then we were rather pooped and about ready to head home.

The costumes for the day were all particularly lovely. It seems that the Ball and the Picnic are the events that everyone dresses up in their finest gowns.

As for me, I had my brand new late Georgian ensemble, complete with my huge felt and buckram hat.

We rounded out our stay in Canberra by heading out to dinner for the night at a historic pub. Half of our group decided that they had had enough of the costumes, but me, I had brought down my Georgian dinner gown from last year to wear for the night. It was lovely to sit down to juicy steak cooked just the way I like it. After hopping on back to our unit, we sat down to share some wine and cheese and some photo swapping. It made for a lovely end to our weekend away.