Small boys, food, work and other joys
May 13, 2016 Leave a comment
The boys and I took the tram around to the Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum of Art to check out its part of the Magic Object exhibition as part of the the Adelaide Biennial.
The art was fascinating, grotesque and evocative.
The part the boys loved best was Proximity Interactive by Gary Stewart – it let you create shapes with your body and movement. Some art is easier to love than other art!
September 1, 2015 Leave a comment
Jude and I did our usual Monday morning walk to school together.
i spent a chunk of Monday at Parliament House, appearing before a Joint Standing Committee. Fortunately, I didn’t really have to answer any questions.
I’m currently doing a four week adolescent Mental Health First Aid course about identifying mental health issues and helping intervene so people receive appropriate treatment etc. James picked me up afterwards and we engaged in some “self care” – a quiet beer or two and a lovely ploughman’s platter at Bentspoke together.
Zac’s best friend Sienna has gone to Indonesia with her family for the next three years, so her wrote her a letter this week.
It is lovely to have children who help – here are all three boys engaging in dinner organisation.
While the end of winter may be nearing, it is still super foggy some mornings.
Small boys and their computer games. There has been a strong Minecraft resurgence in the house. It is a good adjunct to watching the cricket, apparently.
Lovely breakfast at Elk and Pea with Melinda who was visiting from Sydney. Of course, I knew I was going to get some of this one myself.
Lonsdale Street street art.
It was the end of the Artist and Writers’ Festival at Turner School so I went and saw the portrait exhibition. Here is Jude’s contribution.
I was very excited about my new t-shirt.
Went for lunch and hot chocolates with Zac in between various activities on Saturday.
Zac’s choir, the Turner Trebles, sang in an eisteddfod where they competed with five other choirs from around the region. Sadly they didn’t win, but it was a great experience for them.
Sunday the nearness of spring was in evidence with daffodils in bloom.
I walked Jude and Zac to Campbell for a chess competition.
And then it was a wonderful afternoon of gin and friends.
December 31, 2013 Leave a comment
Bunnies! The rabbits around the neighbourhood are getting bolder and bolder. One seems to quite happily be living on the front lawn next door. Well, we know what we’ll be eating a lot of when the Zombocalypse comes.
The last two days of work for the year meant casual clothes and lots of shopping breaks.
And I had to wear my new t-shirt for my last day of work.
Christmas Eve also involved morning tea with the much diminished Branch.
And then lunch with James and the boys and Sean and Alice.
When Zac and I walk to the shops together there is the inevitable stop for a quick play in the playground.
The boys had been somewhat neglectful of the Star Wars Advent calendar, so there was a big catch up session.
Watching Doctor Who Christmas Eve to make sure we were up-to-date for the Christmas special.
And a beautiful sunset.
Also the traditional drinking of the delicious sparkling red received as a Christmas present.
Then a day of Christmas.
Boxing Day involved the now traditional viewing of the Peter Jackson film. We rode into town for that – the boys discovered this giant fluffball before we left.
Sebastian and I tried to fly his new kite, but the wind really wasn’t being cooperative.
And we did lots of washing.
The 27th brought Nana and Poppa – and more Christmas presents!
Sebastian was very pleased with his new Cricket Australia top – thanks Auntie Lucy.
We took Nana and Poppa out to the favourite restaurant – the Elk and Pea.
The next day Jude got to finally spend his K-Mart voucher which was possibly from his birthday (it has been months and months and months since I had been to Belconnen Mall).
Meanwhile I bought some new shoes for $6 at K-Mart. The price is actually one reason I don’t shop at K-Mart too often – it is really hard to imagine that shoes can be produced for that amount without some kind of horrible exploitation of someone somewhere along the line.
The boys and Nana and I went to the Gold and the Incas exhibition at the National Gallery. It was an interesting exhibition (who knew the Incas were only around for 100 years) and we took some time out in the very good kids’ activity room.
We finished the week with a lovely afternoon at the Reids – bbq, pool, cricket watching, beer, wine, friends – living the Australian dream!
May 25, 2013 Leave a comment
The week started with a day trip to Sydney and a presentation in Darling Harbour. I got to wear my fabulous new blue suede shoes too.
On Tuesday we had a Canberra centenary martini night at the Press Club. The martinis were fabulous and we got to frock up and be all sophistimacated.
Zachary got an award at assembly. James was able to make it to assembly, but sadly the wall-to-wallness of meetings meant I didn’t get to see it til that night.
I was still sick this week but not time for a sick day. Which leads to this kind of evidence on one’s desk.
I did get to Dishonour Roller training though. The DHRs are our away team, and while I am not quite good enough to skate with them yet, Sheriff of Naughtyslams and I are the bench crew. I wasn’t on skates though as I was still feeling too blah.
Managed to find time to appreciate how beautiful our street continues to look with the colours of autumn.
Saturday morning and Sebastian’s hockey again. We didn’t make it too the football game though – the two are immediately after each other, and footy was in Queanbeyan, and we had no means of transportation. As Sebastian’s priority is hockey, we get to focus on that, which is easy as we can ride to ANU.
While James and Jude were at Jude’s footy, Sebastian, Zachary and I went to the shops and I was quite happy to have a sit and watch them play in the playground for a while.
Saturday night we had a visit from Steve and Shell and Fritha which is always lovely.
Sebastian, quite the cook now, decided to make souffles for dessert. They turned out brilliantly.
Sunday was a busy day. We walked to Lonsdale Street for breakfast. I love seeing all my boys together like this.
Afterwards there was a bit of shop browsing, which the boys actually really like.
The rest of the afternoon’s activities included collecting things from work, afternoon tea with Ga, drinks at Dave and Caroline’s newly purchased-now-to-be-rented house and derby training.
They also included going to the Front to see the exhibition of an art project Jude had been working on with his class. It is called People and Place and involves linking art done by Indonesian and Australia school students, organised by artist Elly Kent. We went to see the works that had been completed, and also to get screen prints made for each of the boys. Very cool.
March 11, 2013 Leave a comment
It is the Canberra Day long weekend in the Centenary of Canberra year so there are lots of things on to celebrate. I love living in Canberra. Sure it may not be the most exciting place or be filled with endless people, but it is a lovely city with all you need and (now I sound really old) a great place to have children. Trees and birds and bike tracks and good restaruarants and friends. And while Canberra is less multicultural than some Australian cities, our boys still go to a school with kids from 36 different nationalities and backgrounds. I like Canberra a lot and after 17+ years here have no intention to really call anywhere else “home” any time soon.
So we definitely wanted to be part of the Canberra Day celebrations. On Saturday we headed in to Civic for We Built This City. We rode in and got there a bit early, so decided to check out the Canberra Museum and Gallery first. 
It was nice to introduce the boys to some Sidney Nolan. I had not realised the CMAG had such a great collection.
Jude also found an installation which really fascinated him – he loved the texture of the sand and the way it looked like suede.
It was then time for some box building. The builders assessmbled.
James went in to act as an assistant, while I got to watch the frenetic box building activity. The idea was to build a city with the boxes – a lovely simple idea.
After that, we popped over to the Handmade Markets in search of the elusive felt slippers James loves. He didn’t have any luck, but I found a cool new handbag big enough for my iPad as well as all my other (very important) stuff.
We figured we could then have a well deserved refreshment break.
That was the afternoon’s activites. After dinner, we went out for some more, starting at Questacon for a liquid nitrogen demonstration show. Sebastian got to help out.
We then saw some more science demonstrations, including an exploding hydrogen balloon – here is is a microsecond before explosion.
It was then outside to see the lights of Enlighten. I had seen lots of photos on Twitter and Facebook so was keen to see the buildings myself. They looked fantastic.
The boys even got to play Snake on the outside of Questacon.
As part of the Balloon festival, they also had two balloons lit up, with acrobats dangling from the bottoms.
And we saw the crazy hairdressers of Sienta la Cabeza in action.
It was a lovely night to be out and about and celebrating a 100 years of Canberraness.
April 17, 2012 2 Comments
Today the boys went to their favourite school holiday care program and Jude and Zac got to pick up their ceramic and pottery work from last holidays. Tonight, once we finally got home (I lost the ticket for parking and then we had to struggle through traffic, but that is another story), Zac went and practiced a “performance” for us, featuring his various clay artefacts (and a couple of ring-in teddies) which he performed for us after dinner. James even tried to skype in to watch from Heathrow and the BA Lounge, but encountered a few technical difficulties.
February 12, 2012 1 Comment
While James and I were off having grown-up shaped fun last night, the boys spent the night with their Ga with fun activities including biscuit decoration, to colourful results.
February 4, 2012 Leave a comment
For Christmas, Jude received a watercolour set from Jill and Steve. He and Sebastian spent some time today putting it to good use.
Some of the results are very impressive.
October 30, 2011 Leave a comment
A sunny day and a ride across the lake to the Potrait Gallery for their “Big Draw” – a day of activities using creative approaches to “drawing”.
The 3D approach to drawing was a lot of fun. Using small cornstarch foam pieces which stuck together when made damp, we all got to build a range of exiicting constructions.
When we finally got to the end of our creativity with cornstarch foam, it was time to go a bit dotty. The next activity used coloured dots to create pictures on the windows.
The boys made volcanoes and flowers and guns and boats and bridges with their dots.
Finally we did some drawing to music. The jazz band was skteched, or music was used to inspire pictures.
There were other activites, but it was time for us to go. Hoping that they will repeat the event again next year.
The Life and Times of Bossy Boots 