Get a Wiggle On

Well I never thought I'd say it but today we went to see the Wiggles live in concert at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and I haven't enjoyed anything as much since I saw Bono strutting his leather-clad stuff at Wembley Stadium on the Zoo TV tour.

And I don't want you thinking we just rocked up either, because Pop Goes the Wiggles is the hottest ticket in town, so hot that we spent most of the day they went on sale sitting in a telephone queue trying to get hold of three seats, and that was back in July. They're onto a good thing those Wiggles because not only did the seats cost sixty bucks each, the show only lasted about an hour, which is pretty much all pre-school kids will put up with, and to top it off, the helium balloons were selling at $10 a time, which Chopperdoc's still moaning about.

Ella enjoyed the show, though I think she was a bit overwhelmed by the size of the arena and the sight of all those other kids when she'd been expecting a private audience with Jeff the purple one. Anyway, there was a lot of wiggling going on in my seat, not so much in hers, though she did bag herself a feathersword and a tour tee-shirt. You can see this show anywhere in the world, but there's something special about seeing them in their hometown, or beautiful Sydney as they called it. And the tour teeshirt's pretty special as well.

After the show we met up with Jan and Saul for lunch in a dim sum place in neighbouring Chinatown. Jan had also just been to see the Wiggles and had taken her husband and parents along for the ride, both in their late sixties and both having danced their socks off in time to the good clean fun as her father described it. As I suspected, they're both exceedingly posh, but very good company and in very good spirits after the show.

"So you come to Sydney every year?" I asked, twisting the lazy susan to get my hands on the char-sui pork.

"Yes" said Peter. "It's rather embarassing really. We rent out a flat at Woolwich and we have a car there that's registered in Jan's name. We go home to Stockport in February and return in November. The grandchildren are here, you see. Annie doesn't fly so well as she used to, she's had cancer twice and she's almost seventy, but my goodness what a treat you have in store when you get to Australia. We try to do a different bit of it every time. This time we're sailing from Sydney to Tasmania, I'm looking forward to that"

"Has he told you about the flat?" Annie said. "It's terribly embarassing and makes us look as though we have money to burn, but you can't take it with you and we think, you know, let's enjoy life while we can"

"You wouldn't consider coming out here for good?" I asked

"Well we would, definitely" said Peter, "but since Annie's had cancer she has to have a certain number of years free of the disease before they'll accept her as a resident. They're a bit funny about that"

"So if you had your time again, would you have emigrated here when your children were small?"

"Absolutely, yes" came the emphatic reply, from both of them. "I wish my parents had brought me here" said Annie, "it's an incredible place".

After lunch we drove over to Manly and made sandcastles on the beach. With every day that passes I feel more and more inclined to emigrate. Perhaps it's just I don't want this year to end, though I know it has to. I simply can't imagine Sydney as a holiday destination any more, I'm not sure I can be content with coming here every five years when we've been able to call it home. It's so blue, so shiny. I wish I could bring it home to show you.