Originally published by The Clifton Courier, February 12, 2020

I’m really keen on entering something into the Clifton Show this year*.

* Except I didn’t end up entering anything.

But, ever since I got a Highly Commended prize for my handwriting – which is extremely surprising if you’ve seen my penmanship – in primary school, I haven’t earned myself one of those sweet, sweet Clifton Show Society certificates.

Last year my sister and I entered some baked goods in an early-morning flurry on the Friday. I confidently broke out my gingerbread bickies, while I had to really coax her into chucking a few scones together.

It was great fun baking under pressure and rushing to get our offerings plated up and into the pavilion before the roller-door closed, kind of like a really low-budget reality show (I mean, I feel like a Keeping-Up-With-The-Kardashians-style reality show about the Maguires would no doubt be a commercial success, but I think we all know that Mac and Deb would carry the whole series).

My sister walked away with a second place prize, but I’m no longer able to hang my self-esteem on my prize-less gingerbread bickies* so this year I’m thinking I’ll move away from baked goods.

* I respect the judges’ decision, but I tell myself that my gingerbread didn’t win because they just didn’t, like, get what I was trying to do with my bickies. Like, it’s not regular ginger bickie – it transcends all that, you know? I mean, it’s hard to even call them ginger bickies. They just didn’t fit into the category. They couldn’t be marked abasing conventional criteria. They’re beyond that. 

But I still want that thrill of having entered something in the show. I can never go because of work, but I have my minions that I send into the pavilion on the Saturday to see how I went, which isn’t as great as being there yourself, but you do what you can to feel included.

So I’ve been going through the Clifton Show Society Pavilion Schedule (which is thankfully available online, because for some reason my local Brisbane news agent doesn’t have the booklet) to see if there’s anything I could enter in a different category.

I obviously am unable to enter anything into the farm produce section, because the backyard isn’t big enough to get much sorghum going.

As for the vegetables, I could maybe one day enter my silverbeet, but I’ve potted it in a high-maintenance area that gets far too much sun and if I ignore it for a day it looks like a peeled off face mask. So maybe next year.

And then I remember something, which hits me like a flash of lightning.

For years I’ve been wanting to enter something in the Adult Needlework Section.

I mean, I’m not particularly adept when it comes to needles and thread – the art of needlework requires a certain amount of determined precision and attention to detail which I don’t really posses. I mean, if you were to go back and look at my entries in the Rose and Iris Show’s colouring-in competition over the years (which I would like it imagine are kept on file somewhere, to be brought up in case there was a need to analyse the minds of Clifton children based on their colouring capabilities) you’d see that I’m more of an abstract artist. I don’t confirm to pre-drawn lines, man. I transcend lines. Free-spirited, and all that.

However, I like to think that in the case of adult needlework, I would make an exception.

Because, while the phrasing implies the needlework is done by an adult, I preferred the take that the needlework was adult in nature.

Now, I’m not sure what exactly my design would be, but I had hoped it would have straddled the lines between obscenity and art, resulting in a tasteful and community-appropriate, yet somewhat… suggestive embroidered scene.

I have the threads. I have the needles. I have the lack of anything better to do than to spend hours embroidering erotic imagery for the sake of a weak pun.

I was inspired.

Then I flipped forward to the needlework section.

And it seems as through someone had anticipated this exact scenario.

Because the Adult Needlework Section that had existed in my head after years of flipping through the pavilion schedule isn’t in the 2020 edition, and perhaps it never actually was in previous versions.

There’s an Open Needlework Section, which is the category I would fall under (because despite what the collection of Harry Potter figurines in my room would suggest, I’m not a juvenile).

The Adult Needlework Section is for over 70s.

I sighed heavily but recognised that this was probably for the best.*

* Because I’m well aware this does not fit the “tasteful and community-appropriate, yet somewhat… suggestive” brief. It was honestly the best I could think up right now.