They call it 'Free' for short. Fremantle is close to where I'm staying at the moment and Adam and Rachel recommended I walk around. We parked outside their rehearsal space - They are working on a children's show called Aitshoo! - about a girl who has the sniffles, she goes to sleep has a fantastical dream of flying over seas and suns, chasing a bird. The entire show is on a white set, performed by a very talented young actress called Annmarie. I watch the first run through with the two Lucys who work at the arts centre, then head out to the shops to top up my mobile phone, and to get lost. I find a Western Union, an African Hair shop, and when I finally pluck up the courage to say 'G'day Mate' in my best Ozzie accent, the severely tanned man who replies does so with a cockney accent, lets me know he supports Spurs and walks off in disgust when I reply with ManU. I'm in London again. I keep walking past Adelaide Street, Phillimore Street to Victoria Quay and watch the ships for a while. The Indian Ocean is spread out exactly as it looks in maps; that ridiculous hue of blue, endless, vast and lapping laughing against the pier. Between the Maritime Museum and the Shipwreck Galleries there, I sit on Bathers Bay Beach and its sand is the purest and whitest I have seen in 15 years. It's just... there - you know what I mean? Beaches this great are standard here. I return to tell Adam, Rachel and Annmarie and they laugh at me like 'you ain't seen nothing yet'. Jet lag overpowers my manners and I fall asleep again, wilting into the chair. Rachel wakes me up and we drive round to pick up their daughters, Joanne and her older sister Becca. I have taught in schools, so I know a little about how they should look. They should look nothing like this, not like a Cambridge campus, not this big, green, huge fields, wide classrooms, space... It is another world.
Later, Rachel and I go to a meeting on the grounds of the festival and meet Jonathan who runs it. As we drive, Rachel talks about how much she loves the city - Fremantle and Kardinya (where they live) is a little away from the city of Perth. Compared to London, it is tiny, but it is quite a place. It is laid out like New York's grid system, but with none of its bustle. Rachel says that London's footfall count is 40 people to a square meter. In Perth, it is 4. I talk for a long while with David who heads up online communication for the festival, he wears a light grey t-shirt and has the same casual professionalism I try to emulate when I meet people. When David leaves, I go to the courtyard where Rachel holds her meeting for. It is close to midnight, relaxed and the voices mingle with the warm night. Just before we leave back to Kardinya, I talk with Jenny, a Swedish / Spanish lady who is Jonathan's wife. She is an accomplished theatre maker and organiser, they have two daughters and she talks vividly about their strong personalities, how on a train, she heard her older girl tell a stranger: 'I'm Swedish, Spanish, British living in Australia and in three years when my dad's job is done, I don't know where I'll be...' The nomadic blood in me thrills that such mindsets are alive in such young minds. And how do they deal with their parents working such crazy hours at this time of year? Jenny says that after a recent city-scale project, her daughter returning from the show that she loved 'Mum, it's okay you are not home all the time'...