Flowers and Distractions

Part of me trying to force myself to be happy at the moment is distracting myself even when I can’t really be bothered. A friend had a baby shower that I had to drive into Canberra for on Saturday afternoon anyway and since Canberra is also currently hosting the annual flower show spectacular “Floriade” I thought I could go in early and have a look around and wander through the daffodils. It’s something I went to as a kid and I have fond memories of (even though I nearly drowned their once when I fell in the lake while showing off to my friend.) 

Hubby was working and had Mr15 & Mr13 helping him out to earn holiday pocket money, Mr11 was at a friends house. None of them were remotely interested in seeing a bunch of flowers en masse, anyway, but since I hadn’t been in so many years I decided I might as well make a day of it and drag Miss 8 along with me for the ride. She wasn’t overly keen on seeing a bunch of flowers but she was super excited at the chance to spend the day out of the house and without her brothers.

We drove into the city, spent approx. 3 months looking for parking and waited 45minutes for a very overloaded double decker bus to take us to the flower show, Miss 8 was starting to look very sceptical about the whole thing. It was already an unseasonably warm 30 degrees at 10am and we were packed into the bus like sardines with poor Miss 8 forced to sit on my lap, we were overdressed and I’d also forgotten to bring hats & sunscreen so we were very glad to finally burst out of the stifling bus and into the fresh air.

First stop was the giant Ferris wheel where we got mild nausea and a great view of the city. It was cool to see the funky patterns that the flowers were planted in, which you didn’t really notice so much looking from the ground.

 There were little food shops and market stalls set up everywhere actual flower part was much smaller than I remembered it from my childhood but that was probably good as Miss 8 could care less about flowers and her little legs tired out quickly. We had the obligatory $5 streets ice-cream as we wandered around the market stalls and were even able to pat a cute little baby crocodile at the reptile exhibit before we had to head back to the bus stop so that I could get to the baby shower at 2pm.

The Ferris Wheel was windy, but a great view!

The bus was due at 12.30 and by 12.55 it became apparent it wasn’t going to come anytime soon, so we hightailed it back into the city on foot. It was only about 3km but to an already tired, hungry and hot 8yr old that is 3km too far and by the time we made it back to the car she was red faced and on the verge of tears. I appeased my guilt about dragging her hatless and sun cream-less in 30 degree weather by buying her an oh so nutritious drive through cheeseburger Happy Meal before depositing her at Hubby’s workshop and just making it to the baby shower on time. I even remembered to bring the present!

Later on I asked her if she’d had fun and she said “Yes! Remember the Ferris Wheel? And how I got to pat the crocodile?” thankfully she’s a glass is half full kind of person so the being forced to walk 3km in the heat was already long forgotten amidst the joy of her ‘getting stuff’ and ‘the boys missing out.’