‘Tis the season to be merry, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Oh, hang on. That was the festive season.

What we're enjoying now is the festival season. Best to keep your weekends free for the foreseeable future, as each one brings forth a new festival.

Last weekend it was Maketu's relocated Kaimoana Festival in Te Puke, seafood snacks and music.

Before that it was Waitangi day, reggae at One Love and much more. Next weekend it's the Aongatete Festival, which is all about folky music. This weekend? Well it's a little harder to define...

Close enough

This weekend is the Nashi Festival. Which I'm quite excited about. Mainly because it takes place not far from the welcoming gates of the Watusi Country Club.

Close enough for one of the cats to be my sober driver. The little buggers jump in the car every time I leave the door open anyway, so I figure it's about time they started pulling their weight.

Not that the Nashi Festival looks like a drinking event. It's much weirder than that...
Actually, as we all know, weird is in the eye of the beholder (duking it out with beauty). A much better word would probably be 'unusual”.

The Nashi Fest, held at the Arty House, 372 Wairoa Rd, Te Puna, is I think what one might call a 'new age” festival.

They have music, they have storytelling, they have workshops, they have four stages' they have stuff for kids to do.

Their slogan is 'sharing your abundance”. It lasts two days, you can camp, it's just down the road from Bethlehem, and there are more than a few elements you're unlikely to run across at any other festival.

Let me offer an example. Things kick off at noon on Saturday, February 21. At 1pm you can pick from the three following: Maori storytelling; Fruit Tree Guilds, a workshop on what ‘support plants' fruit trees like; and for the children, Carina will demonstrates some fun uses for vegetables/fruit by making some innovative vegie animals.

Yoga for children

Elsewhere there is yoga for children, a micro-greens workshop, and a Mayan Dreamscape Sacred Journey during which for a couple of hours you explore the Mayan calendar led by Giselle Cosmic Eagle.

And that's just day one. Day two brings identifying edible weeds and superfood green smoothies as well as adding raw live food to your daily life.

Giselle is also back with Qigong – life force awareness.

Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of Qigong. The notes say it is: 'the best kept secret on the planet”. There's also a pile of good music: singer/songwriters Monique Holden and Brandon Kawenga, the wonderful sounds of Sweet Echo, the Mauao Contemporary Choir, and, coming from Wellington, Matiu Te Huki.

You can see the full schedule on-line at www.nashifest.net.nz. Tickets for the two days are $35, or $70 for a family, and include camping on-site if you want. And ignore the booze crack I made earlier – there's no alcohol on sale.

Sharing abundance

Sharing their abundance the following weekend on February 27-28) are the good people of the Tauranga Acoustic Music Club and the Katikati Folk Club, who combine annually for a bash at an orchard on Works Rd just south of Katikati. This year they've renamed it the Aongatete Festival.

The Friday night consists of a blackboard concert by members of the clubs. Then it's all on for a full day of music on Saturday, a mix of informal concerts and spots by the festivals two guest acts.

Wild Clovers

One is local quartet the Wild Clovers, a band with all the necessary components of a folk act: an acoustic guitar, a bodhran, an accordion, and Robbie Laven.

As usual, he'll be playing everything else (fiddle, mandolin, penny whistle etc...).
The other outfit on the bill don't much resemble a folk act but seem very popular: Wizard and Oz, the piano and guitar duo who boast fine vocals, virtuoso piano playing and a bag of 1000 cover songs to suit all occasions.

There's more info at www.tamc.org.nz/TAMC_Festival.html as well as the folk club website. Tickets are $20 at the gate and you can camp too.

So get out there. You know you want to. Share your abundance. Who knows? If you don't you might be left with an over-abundance of abundance.