The excitement has been building here because November brings the annual Tilligerry Festival to our little town. I find it quite amusing that we moved from Rickmansworth which hosted the famous Ricky Week every spring and we now have settled in a town 11000 miles away which a pretty much identical week of events each year albeit on a smaller scale. I was looking forward to this as I was back visiting England for the whole of November last year so this was to be my first festival here. 

The week kicked off with the Literary Awards Dinner, prizes are given for the best short stories in various categories and the competition attracts a surprising number of entrants when you consider that only 5600 people live on the Peninsula in total. We did not go to this but we were ready and waiting for the next event... the trivia night.
This was really the usual quiz night we attend regularly but with a specialist round on the local area. We did a bit of revision but did not hold out much hope of success as we are still very much the newcomers to the area out of all the quiz teams but we came second, beaten only by a team of six which relies rather heavily on their two English immigrant members, I don't know what this says about the teams who were born and brought up around these parts!

 Next up was the Art Exhibition with categories for Paintings, Photography, Quilting and Sculpture. I could not believe the number of entries and the standard of the winners was incredibly high for a local show. It was only afterwards we found out that the prize money for these shows is pretty high so they attract artists from all over, not just locals.
The week ended with the Foreshore Fun Day on Saturday. Santa arrived on the Marine Rescue boat then there was a sail past of any boats who wanted to dress up and join in (we were too nervous we might cause chaos with ours but might take part next year when we are a bit more experienced). It reminded me a bit of the Pagham Pram Race, the annual Boxing Day event in the village my parents retired to that kept us amused for many a year. There were prizes for the best dressed boats and crew and it was won by a group of Scots on a catamaran. 

This was followed by the usual mix of stalls, funfair rides, dog displays, sausage sizzles, dancing and music until 8.30 when it was dark enough for the fireworks. This was pretty exciting because we don't have bonfire night in Australia and it is illegal to buy fireworks anywhere other than Canberra so, unless we travel to an organised display at New Year, we don't get to see them. A barge was towed out into the bay where they were let off and looked fabulous reflecting on the water. It was nice to be warm too, I don't think I have ever watched fireworks when I have not been cold and, more often than not, wet.