School holidays

It's still school holidays here and I've been off this week entertaining the children. No, that's not true, I have been distantly supervising them ... they are more than old enough to entertain themselves. But we did have an outing, to Floriade, which is Canberra's annual flower festival. Mostly tulips and bulbs, with some of the spring annuals to spice things up a bit. There is always a really lame theme that the designers torture themselves by trying to do flower beds in the shape of ... but really it's just lots and lots of flowers. This is from the top of the ferris wheel - there are definitely shapes. Of something.

Number one son is not very happy with heights. He didn't really open his eyes until we'd gone round a couple of times, and even then he peeked out while maintaining a strangle grip on the nice solid metal pole in the middle of the cabin. So when we got off he had to have some candy floss to settle his nerves. It worked very well.

Here's a pond with a big yellow duck in it. No, he's not about to fall in, he's just being an idiot. As you can see it was ferociously windy and not very warm. Typical Floriade weather!

I love the colours in this - pink and purple with just a hint of yellow. I took lots of close-ups of flowers, which I do every year, I don't know why. I never look at them again. It's just they are so very pretty en masse.

We did the flowers, then the rides (ferris wheel and slides), then the gnomes and the display gardens, before meandering around to the kiddy area. There was a reptile petting zoo which the boys loved and I stayed outside of! I don't mind lizards but I really don't need to see vast pythons slithering around ... and all the handlers seemed to have little snakes in their pockets or round their arms. A bit disconcerting, especially in a crowded tent. The albino snake was really disturbing, it just looked wrong.

Anyway, while I was waiting I saw this sign of upcoming events in the kids' area. Isn't this the most appalling attempt to make boring things interesting? Oral hygiene? Puh-lease.