Saturday afternoon horse riding

Audrey on Romeo (her favourite pony)

The beautiful Brindabella Mountains in the background

Things have turned a bit chillier now and so Audrey's horse riding lesson (which has taken place in extreme heat with ponies bothered by flies) is now 'crisp' and chilly. Canberra is characterised (usually) by lovely blue skies though - so even though the weather is cold we still get a fair amount of sunshine and daylight. Here's some pictures from Saturday's lesson.

Million Paws Walk, Castle Park and Civic!

Audrey had been desperate to go to Million Paws Walk on Sunday - a charity dog walk which now takes place around Lake Burley Griffin. We don't have a dog(!) but the weather was beautiful on Sunday morning and so we headed along so she could get a fix of "Man's best friend".

It's actually remarkable how much Audrey loves dogs now. She was terrified as a younger girl - (to the extent of having to cross over the road whenever there was a dog in sight) but is now significantly removed from that. There were hundreds of dogs doing the walk (of all shapes and sizes) and it was really good fun being part of the action.

Afterwards we walked into the city through Commonwealth Park and found 'Castle Park' a series of brick tunnels and fortifications that the kids could climb through. I can't believe we'd never been there before and I was grateful that I had found it now rather than in a few years time when the kids would have outgrown it. We'll definitely be back. We headed into the city for a quick bite before heading home.

 

The kids wrapped up their day with a trip to see the film; 'A dog's purpose' which Andy took them to - thereby wrapping up a complete dog-centric kind of day!

 

 

One of the mounds in Castle Park

Light fun in Civic (the lights change colour when you press them)

Dog fancy dress at Million Paws Walk

Jessica Watson

This term Audrey's class has been doing a project on 'Explorers'. When the first emails came out from her (excellent) teacher, I thought it would be great to do someone contemporary (and preferably female) rather than Captain Cook, Christopher Columbus etc who are all essentially just dead old men.

I've actually got a great book on Australian adventurers (picked up from a charity shop) but you soon learn from it that while brave/foolhardy a lot of early exploration in and around Australia was pretty haphazard, expensive and prone to failure.

 

There are disastrous stories ranging from the calamitous exploration by Burke and Wills (to walk from north to south Australia) and the exploration of inland Australia by Charles Sturt.

Burke and Wills both died (a member of their exploration was saved by local aborigines) meanwhile Sturt marched off into inland Australia (basically a desert) carrying a whaling boat as he was so convinced there was an inland sea...

 

Audrey and I took to the internet to find someone a) still alive(!) and b) a female. We came up with Jessica Watson - who was young Australian of the year in 2011 for her efforts in circumnavigating the world unassisted when aged only 16.

 

I bought Audrey, Jessica Watson's book (which she read in a couple of weeks) and we listened to podcasts, youtube clips etc. It was wonderful watching and listening to the enthusiasm Audrey built on her subject - so much better than reading about some old guy getting stuck with a spear in Tahiti (Captain Cook).

 

On Friday Audrey had to present back to the class. I'm comfortable in saying that she knew more than any other kid presenting on their explorer. I don't know if Audrey will ever learn to sail, or if she'll go on explorations of her own but I was so proud of her knowledge of another young (and great) Australian. I hope so much that the two get to meet each other one day.

 

Presenting back to Miss Cupid.

2 point

Audrey loves horse riding and her is really progressing given that she's only been riding for just over a year.

 

On Saturday the kids were practicing '2 point' (no I didn't know what it was either) but essentially the first step in learning to jump.

 

Audrey actually had a cantankerous old pony (Sparkle) but kept him really in line throughout the lesson. It's great watching her having such fun.

 

Slide day at the pool!

The Play that Goes Wrong

We went to see a very funny play called 'The Play that Goes Wrong'. Keeping true to the title everything did indeed go wrong. It was set as a murder mystery but everything mucks up from people forgetting their lines, to being knocked out and of course doors on the set jamming, windows falling out etc. It's a really well put together play which had shown at the West End. It was really good fun and even though it wasn't specifically for kids both A&E loved the slapstick nature of it.