Scottish Aristocracy arrives (via the Phillipines) for the Goomeri Pumpkin Festival (the last Sunday in May)

Laird Jeffery stood by his diminutive Filipino wife watching preparation of the camp oven dinner at Goomeri Pumpkin Festival.     The Laird and his Lady both agreed with the two grey travellers standing alongside that the camp oven dinner of lamb curry or sweet and sour pork would not be high on their favoured or flavoured list for dinner.   Preparation was ad hoc for such huge proportions with great handfuls of curry paste being stirred into a massive bony conglomeration of lamb cuts and carrots which denied measured attention.   The huge ladle which stirred the paste into the curry met the cook’s lips on occasions to test for adequate curry fire.     The pork?   Well, it was less deserving of attention and bubbled away in an orange sauce – also with heaps of carrots.    The cook, the local purveyor of meats willingly shared whatever logic underpinned his concoctions and admitted to owning the truck parked alongside the camp ovens which featured the generic labels “Cow, Sheep, Pig” rather than the more familiar “beef, lamb and pork”.

The nomad ladies’ conversation with two bystanders soon switched to their role in the Medieval contingent of the festival parade and their temporary camp home on a nearby mountain whilst visiting from the Phillipines.

A laird, he explained,  is a name for the owner of a large, long-established Scottish estate, roughly equivalent to an esquire in England, yet ranking above the same in Scotland. In the Scottish order of precedence, a laird ranks below a baron and above a gentleman.   Jousting aside, the Goomeri parade was one of the few occasions when Laird Jeffery and Lady Jessica (his diminutive Filipino wife) could assume an identity which brought them accolades from the festival crowds – perhaps more deserving than “another middle aged man with a Filipino bride”.

Requiring little prompting to describe their outfits, the Laird volunteered great detail about his and his Lady’s medieval dress.   We were not, he said, to denigrate his helmet which he confided in us was constructed from  a plastic bike helmet.  We assured this excited Lord and Lady that their efforts would not be unnoticed by us and we would cheer loudly and clearly as they strutted their stuff in the parade the next day.