Filling Gaps

This Saturday, it was fun fair day!

And we were running a stall.

It all started last weekend when our friend who had hosted us at his house for two weeks told us about Gap Filler. Gap Filler, is a community-run program organized by one woman who was made redundant from the earthquake and wanted to give to the community and help rebuild the city. Their goal is to find empty gaps created by fallen buildings from the earthquake and fill them with events - live music, movies, fairs, and more. Last Sunday, we went to watch some live music and an arts film and found out about the fair.

We spent all week deciding what sorts of games we might host. Come Friday night, we were working madly in the kitchen making fudge and candy corn for prizes and picking up all the hammers and nails we could scrounge. On Saturday morning, we woke up and crammed the car full of wood, hammers, nails, fudge and candy corn, then drove off to the church where the fair was to take place. I helped Stephen unpack the car and setup before taking off for a quick trip to the market to load up on our weekly fruit and vege needs. By the time I returned the fair was in full swing and there were people everywhere.

[Our Hammer Time stall was a big hit with the kids who just wanted to bash things]

[An egg and spoon race contestant]

[I believe there were about a dozen different places to purchase cupcakes - my favorite was the cookie monster cupcake, complete with cookie]

[As mentioned above, one of the many purveyors of cupcake]

[There was live music throughout the day - ranging from church choir to high school band t0 professional musicians]

[Three-legged race - there was tough competition for the prize; a native tree seedling]

[The awesomeness that is pancake racing - one must run down the course and stop at the cans to flip the pancake, pass it to your team mate and repeat]

[Yes, there were even stilt walkers - it isn't really a fair without them]

Stephen and I spent the next few hours hawking our hammering activity, timing races and giving away chocolate fudge. Although kids made up the majority of our participants, we had adults too, racing each other and trying to beat the 20 second competition - our record was 7 1/4 nails. We each took the chance to wander as well, but we were placed around the perimetre of the race course, so we were well entertained with egg and spoon races, three-legged races, and pancake races. We saw friends who came to enjoy the fair and met all sorts of great people in the community. And at the end of the day, we even got to watch some Morris dancers (please see this film for more info).

[The closing act - Morris Dancers, complete with ribbons, bells and sticks]

[An absolutely lovely day of music, fun and games]

At 4pm, we packed up our stand, gave in our earnings (for the Red Cross and future events like this one) and headed home. It had been a glorious autumn day and we were ready for a relaxing night in.