Finally, some perfect weather for the show!
I spent the morning with Amy and Ava, I can't wait to spend many more years with them at the show. I quickly realised that the itinerary I had planned (arrive at 9, watch a cow milking demonstration at 9:30) was much, MUCH to ambitious since Ava understandably was quite distracted by the overwhelming sights and sounds of the show (as well less exciting things, like a pile of leaves on the ground), so we decided to stay at one end of the show and enjoy the animal themed things there.
After Amy and Ava left, I managed to track down "the gentleman", which I was very confused about since as far as I can tell this is purely a Buffy thing. He was definitely dressed as one of the gentlemen from Buffy, but I am still very confused at why this was a roaming show at the Royal Show. He was really cool! I told him I was a massive Buffy fan, and because he couldn't speak, he bowed and kissed my hand instead. So cool!
While waiting for Andrew to come in, I went and saw the hypnotist show, Shane St James, and decided, what the hell, I'll get up on stage. It was a very similar format to the only other hypnotist show I've seen (
Mindfoolness at fringe) where the performer asks for volunteers who are open to being hypnotised, and are "characters". I decided I was definitely both, and managed to score a spot on stage.
The first part (the whole "you're getting sleeeepy" thing) was really relaxing, and I genuinely felt heavy and sleepy and yawned on his cue. But it took a turn for the worse when he told us that we were now in a band, and needed to pick up our instrument and play to the music. I picked up some drums, and pretended to play.
I also pretended to be Michael Jackson (the rare licence to touch my crotch in public), Mick Jagger (didn't know if he was a singer or played guitar, so I did both), a muscle man (you don't need to ask me twice to show off the guns), Miss Australia (kissy lips and crossed legs) and Beyonce (lots of pointing to the ring finger).
There were a couple of songs that made us do stuff, like be little kids, snake charmers, and in love with a member of the audience (I ended up just dancing with one other lady who also seemed a bit reluctant to go into the audience). A couple of the people got their own personal song; there was a conductor, a boxer, and superman, all of which were very enthusiastically in character. When we "woke up", we were told there would be a bad smell, so I covered my nose to avoid the fake smell, while the lady next to me very convincingly dry heaved.
At the end, the lady next to me (the dry heaver) said she'd had a very intense experience, so I don't know what to think! I was definitely pretending due to a combination of having absolutely no shame, the peer pressure of not being able to leave the stage, and a bit of "what the hell, they're clapping"-ness. I wonder if anyone else had a genuine hypnotic experience, I was very disappointed I didn't get one! It was interesting; I guess it's the most eye opening experience I've had with my eyes closed.
Andrew came and met me in the early afternoon, and we did our regular things like watching the sheep dog trials (the 10 month old pups were amazing), the dairy pavilion (have you ever waited in a line for half a cup of choc milk?), food and drinks (including a gruesome looking "pig in a blanket" that Andrew loved and I refused to try for obvious reasons) and patting bunnies (where we bumped into Shane and Tammy). The gin tasting at Giniversity was really good, I ended up getting the botanical one but they were all top notch.
We decided to have dinner in the members lounge which was really awesome, we'll definitely do that again. The pre-fireworks entertainment was Shannon Noll, who was pleasant background music for a great dinner, and we even got "What About Me" as an encore. We watched the fireworks outside since the view wasn't great from the members lounge, and the trusty old fireworks glasses did not fail to impress.
I can't wait to enjoy everything from our haul this year!
