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Lady of Pleasure and Radiant Madame Chardonnay have only just recently returned from another visit to a Red Hat Convention. This one was held on Norfolk Island. They were joined by about 60+ other Red Hatters from Australia and New Zealand. The girls had a wonderful time and caught up with good friends from the Ballarat Ladybirds. While they were on Norfolk Island the ladies were all very regally entertained. The Red Hatters held a parade down the main street which was a sight to be seen. The queen of the Norfolk Chapter was crowned by the Administrative Commissioner. It was a very gala affair and in celebration of the convention, Norfolk Island Post issued a special stamp. The Red Hatters spent a lot of money while on the island. They evidently cleaned out the supermarket and spent a fair bit at the duty free shops. I believe the luggage allowance was enlarged to enable all of the ladies to take home all their goodies. 

Last week I had the pleasure of delivering four quilts made by the Red Hat Revellers of Beerwah in Queensland to a friend of mine in Monbulk. Karen is able to pass them on to someone who will deliver the quilts to needy victims of the Black Saturday bushfires. A big thank you goes to Queen Josephine Laughs A Lot for the wonderful work her ladies have done in making the quilts. 

May and June were the months of celebrations. In May, the Ritzy Rosellas got together to celebrate Mother's Day at Baroness Bella Rosa's lovely home. Lady Of Pleasure and Radiant Madame Chardonnay (who was celebrating her birthday) brought along their photo albums of their trip to Texas. Some of us were able to bring along our mother's and others brought along a female friend or member of their family. As usual we played games, bought hats off Grand Duchess Bow Jingles, ate lots of yummy food and of course, drank champagne. Baroness Bella Rosa's lovely roadie, Simon, gave the girls some hints about buying antiques and how to look after them. It was a wonderful way to spend a cold afternoon.

On the 13th of June about twenty five red hatters got together to celebrate all the birthdays from the first half of the year. We celebrated Lady of Good Cheer's 60th birthday but unfortunately she was home sick in bed. We played Pin the Bling and Red Hat Lotto which was a lot of fun. Then we had to try to guess the owners of about fifteen baby photos. This was very hard and the highest score was four.  Little Red Hat from Missouri was at her last event in Australia for this year. She is about to embark on a world wide cruise before heading home for Christmas. Little Red Hat will be missed but we look forward to her visit in 2010. After our sumptious afternoon tea we all went out into the street for a "Bubble Off". My neighbours have never seen anything like it. There were about five or six of us at a time lined up trying to blow as many bubbles as we could. Some of us had enough trouble getting the lids off the bottle of bubbles much less trying to blow a lot of bubbles. Our bubble champion for 2009 is Countess Mothergoose. She had the perfect technique.

In July, five of us are heading up to QLD on the Sunshine Coast, for the Girlfriend's Giggle. There will be four hundred and fifteen Red Hatters in Caloundra. Watchout QLD. Later in July we will be celebrating the Delightful Dowager's 99th birthday. What a party we will have on that day. 

Our Red Hats ladies have been very busy during the month of April. Lady Oops A Daisy, Lady of Pleasure and Radiant Madame Chardonnay travelled to Dallas, Texas to attend the Diva Red Hat Convention with 1500 other Red Hatters. They were greeted and treated as favoured guests. A lot of the American ladies remembered Lady of Pleasure and Radiant Madame Chardonnay from last year's visit to Florida. I have been assured that after this event Lady Oops A Daisy will also be remembered. The girls had a wonderful time. They saw many interesting things amongst which was the way in which one Red Hatter decorated her room with lots of red and purple. The girls also saw that if you don't have a hat you can make one out of some very handy underwear. Radiant Madame Chardonnay was very pleased when she won the opportunity to have a meal with Esteemed Queen Mother Sue Ellen. She had a wonderful time and said that Sue Ellen was very pleasant and very interested in Red Hats in Australia. The girls were sad to leave their new friends in Dallas and are now making plans to try to get to San Diego in 2010. 

 While they were away the rest of us got meet and party with Queen Eleoenora from the Netherlands. A group of us plus Duchess Do Goodly from Perth all met up with her on the steps of Flinders Street Station. Once again we caused quite a stir and had to wait while our photos were taken by visitors to Melbourne. We spent the day at Docklands and rode on the City Circle Tram. Little Red Hat from Missouri was welcomed into our chapter and had her title conferred on her underneath the clocks at the Station. 

Finally last weekend about sixteen of us got together for a morning of fun. About eight of us went to a local market for some bling shopping and then met eight more ladies at Countess Sews A Lot's home for a BBq lunch. Her Roadie did an excellent job of cooking our lunch for us. In May we are going to celebrate Mother's Day with an afternoon tea the day before, we will be going out for lunch and will go on a garages sale crawl will complete the month's activities.