Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

While I missed the fabulous Caledonian Mardi Gras parades entirely due to my real life schedule, I was fortunate enough to join in the post parade revels for a while.

Lady Eleanor, Lady Eva (and our feathers) dance with the creator of the Caledon Mardi Gras Parade, Iason Hassanov.

photo credit: Eleanor Anderton

For more information on Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras see this Wikipedia link.

Slàinte Iason Hassonov! Slàinte!

Mardi Gras parade
(shhhhh - Don't tell the Bishop that the parade took place 2 days into Lent)

Talk about an event that brought the community together! On one count I made, there were at least 70 participants in the parade, and several more spectators along the route. The lag provided irrefutable evidence of the high level of participation. Well that and the huge numbers of prims per float.


About two weeks ago, Iason and I were having a lovely conversation when it seemed an idea struck him. He said, "Your Grace! What would you think about a Mardi Gras parade for all of Caledon?" I was just about to answer when he said, "Hold on....hold on.....I'm working on the notecard!"

And thus the event was conceived. How brilliant it turned out to be, my friend! I am unsure of the final count on the floats. And the lag was so bad that I was not able to actually get pictures of very many of them. But I do know that everyone seemed to have a great time - just being together - laughing, cracking jokes, and dancing away. The Exotic Women of Caledon could not get their float working, so we all called for our horses and were back in the parade straight away.

Standing on the Exotic Women of Caledon float

No float? No problem!

At one point I crashed so hard I ended up back home in the Loch. Bucephalus and I decided to head into Vic City and the the Moors to wait for the parade to catch up to us. For old time's sake I sat at my old Moors plot. Shortly after my arrival there, Miss Underwood, Miss Nadir, Mr. Somme, and some unknown tinker (ahem) showed up to watch the parade with me. We had a lovely time chatting and watching the floats.

Some of the beautiful floats

We then rode our horses as fast as we could to Iason's property. The mood was extremely festive! Gabrielle put on some fantastic Mardi Gras music and we partied and laughed together for quite some time.



Thank you Iason! And thank you friends and neighbors for such a wonderful, creative response.