Trip to Floriade

On Saturday we paid a trip to Floriade - Canberra's annual flower festival which is always spectacular and draws huge crowds of people (both from Canberra and other places around Australia). It's a great day out and remarkably it remains free of admission charges.

During the month long festival Commonwealth Park turns into a mass of flower beds - typically depicting a 'theme' which this year was entitled, 'Beautiful Innovation'. Being Canberra's 100th anniversary many of the beds were given over to a Canberra theme, with the Portrait Gallery, the Mint and National Museums depicted in tulips, daisies and hyacinths.

Audrey and Eli love the place - not least as there's a well equipped fair ground (with ferris wheel and rides) and free craft activities. We also caught a talk by Costa Georgiadis (an ABC gardening celebrity) who talked about (amongst many other things) buying (or growing) local produce.

There's also a petting paddock (Eli stroked a rabbit and duck) and a stage featuring musicians and entertainers.

Here's some pictures of our lovely sunny day.

Eli and Audrey enjoying the blooms

one of the many beds

enjoying a picnic

family pose by the poppies

Costa (who described himself as 'half man, half hedge)

Amy's parents come over for Grandparent's Day

Audrey and Eli's school organised 'Grandparent's Day'. It was an opportunity for Grandparents to come and visit the school and see what the kids were working on. On the same day Audrey won a merit for good use of punctuation (for use of speech marks in a sentence - "Well Done!").

Audrey and Eli's Nanny and Poppy headed over and enjoyed a morning at the school (as well as a nice morning tea). Here's a pic of them admiring some of Audrey's work in her classroom.

 Audrey wins a merit certificate

Reading to Nanny and Pop

Audrey making honey joys

Honey joys are crispy cornflake cakes made with honey and cornflakes. The kids make them occasionally as they're really easy to make (and even easier to eat!).

Here's some pictures of Audrey at work - making honey joys for her class!

Tennis Lessons

We went along to a 'try tennis' session at nearby Weston Creek tennis club.

The kids were reluctant at first but the enthusiasm of the coach was infectious and they were given a short private lesson which they loved.

We're going to try again over the school holidays and then go for a longer term thing - look out Wimbledon 2025!

Election Day

Saturday was election day in Australia and Audrey made it into the Guardian's election blog - focusing on the gigantic senate ballot paper which we all had to fill in.

It was my first time as a voter in Australia. Australia has compulsory voting which means you are fined if you don't go and vote and choose instead to just sit around in a pub and grumble about the state of the economy (which is more what I'm used to people doing). It's a good system in that turn-outs tend to be around 90-95% (rather than UK local government elections which attract turnouts of about 25%) but bad when you see the state of some of the crack-pots who go and vote (often for other crack-pots) and thereby have something of a say in terms of who runs the country.

 

To entice people along many polling booths run a sausage sizzle and cake stall, meaning that politics becomes synonymous with the smell of a cooking sausage!

Eli at his pre-school

Here's a lovely photo of Eli playing with his friends today in the block corner (sent onto us by his teacher). Very impressive block building. Eli especially liked the car park because there were so many cars.

Eli and the blocks

Father's Day

As well as being Father's Day yesterday was the first day of Spring!

The change in season brought with it some great weather. It was in the low 20 degrees (C) yesterday and we had a lovely time together as a family.

Audrey, Eli and I headed to the supermarket first thing to buy some croissants (so I could eat them in bed). Quite how cycling to and from the shops (towing the kids in a trailer) to buy provisions before being being allowed to retreat back to bed (and have Audrey and Eli join us) constituted as a lie-in I'll probably never quite work out!

The kids both got me great presents - Audrey a pair of 'Garden Hands' and Eli some hot chilli sauce.

After breakfast we headed to the (excellently appointed) Australian Institute of Sport running track for a Little Athletics open day (Audrey and Eli threw the shotputt and did the long jump into the sandpit!) but we couldn't coerce them to run a 100 metres.

We then headed to Lake Ginninderra for lunch (tasty barbeque) and a play on the playground.

There's a small 'beach' there and both Eli and Audrey were soon wading around and generally bothering the ducks.

It was beautiful weather and because it was VERY early in the season there were no flies to spoil the lunch. I ate my hot chilli sauce with my lunch and encouraged Eli and Audrey to try some - dabbed onto their tongues (unsurprisingly they drank a lot more water afterwards!)

We headed back home and there was still time to do some some gardening (and get to use my 'Garden Hands'). A great and sunny Father's Day!

Footy in the park

Concentration on the face!

paddling!

Canberra's Beach!

Audrey practices on-land surfing!