Okay, we realise the weather doesn't help when it's expected to max out at 12 degrees on the second day of summer, but surely there's more to it than just that.

Just at the weekend, the city saw almost 20,000 people descend on it for the Spilt Milk music festival. The majority of these were in their late teens and early 20s.

Every hotel room was booked out, every Airbnb, every Stayz accommodation was gone. A week before the event, the only hotel room left in the city was going for $1000 for Saturday night.

But unfortunately, that extra amount of people in town meant there was a distinct lack of taxis and Ubers to get people out to Victoria Park, a venue not exactly close to where the majority of accommodation is located in town.

Taxi drivers were run off their feet as more drivers were brought down from Melbourne to cope with the crush. Local drivers reported a full night of trips to and from Victoria Park until well into the following morning.

Anyone who was driving around the city on Saturday morning would have seen young people attempting to hitchhike to the festival. People were seen walking along Humffray Street North, they were seen in the south of the city along Albert Street and also in the north.

In Ballarat North, a group of 20 somethings were stranded on Howitt Street for almost an hour trying to get a lift to the festival they'd each paid hundreds of dollars to see, not to mention the cost of their accommodation.

The group was mocked and laughed at by the few drivers who even bothered to slow down, but then quickly drove off, leaving them stranded on the side of the road.

When they finally hitched a ride with the help of a local resident, the group from Gippsland, said they couldn't believe how beautiful the city was "but why is everybody so rude?"

"We thought we'd have no trouble getting an uber or a taxi, but there's just nothing around," one of the passengers, a school teacher, told the driver.

"It's one of our friends birthday, so we wanted to make it a really nice trip away, but it was really frustrating seeing so many stop and then just drive off the way they did."

Is this what we want our city to be known for? When did we become so mean?

On Friday night, another visitor to our town walked away with a poor taste in her mouth after her car was smashed while she had it parked out the front of her partners house in Black Hill.

Claudia Alp woke up Saturday morning to find the windows on her car smashed in. Having previously lived in the city, she knows how regular it is for cars to get stolen or torched.

"The car is looking a little bit sick, but at least I've still got it and it wasn't burned out," she philosophically said.

One look on the 'Stolen Stuff Ballarat' Facebook page and you see daily reports of vandalism and theft.

Just over the weekend alone, we have had reports of letterboxes being damaged in the Ballarat North and Black Hill, a report of an attempted car jacking in Miners Rest and thousands of dollars worth of tools stolen from Alfredton.

We also had a report over the weekend of children - with their parents watching on - throwing items at swans at Lake Wendouree. Unfortunately, we know from various reports including a sickening incident which we saw in November of a man throwing a shoe at a swan, this is unfortunately an all-too-common occurrence it seems.

And while we're at it, let's talk about roundabouts. Is it that difficult to simply give way to the person coming on your right? Why are we so impatient? No wonder there are so many crashes at intersections across the city with drivers failing to obey the basic road rule of 'give way'.

Like all communities, Ballarat has its good and its bad. On the good side of things, last week The Courier was contacted by a Warracknabeal woman who had lost her mobile phone. She rang to talk about how someone had handed it in to a doctors office after it had fallen out of her bag.

But unfortunately, those reports are few and far between.

We live in a beautiful city, the envy of the everyone in this state. We have a spectacular lake and parklands filled with bird life, historic buildings full of character, great schools and hospitals, and yes, ordinary weather at times.

So here we are, three weeks out until Christmas. Perhaps now is the perfect time to start looking after each other a bit and stop being so angry at the world.

Go and check on your elderly neighbours, help someone put up some Christmas lights, donate something to a charity or call a person who you know might be struggling with something in their life, but above all, can we all just stop being so mean?

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