We visited the Carnival of flowers

In Toowoomba every year in September, our city hosts the Carnival of flowers. So much so, that Toowoomba has been given the name of the Garden City. It's really a wonderful time of year and the local Council does an excellent job of dressing the local gardens and streets, with colours and scented perfumes.

Queen's Park Memorial 2010

This was an excellent use of the colour blue, and the different levels of planting, using heights. I took this photo from the platform specifically errected to take elevated pictures.

Acres of flower beds

Dave and daughter, hamming it up for the camera infront of some beatufil garden beds. I told him to smile but he replied, "this IS smiling", through gritted teeth. Daughter was jumping on his back, much to the amusement of the other visitors to the garden.

Tulip heads

Finally, here is daughter, me and her pet poodle, posing in the tulips, albeit, not exactly the natural variety. Although it looks like I have short hair in the picture, it's actually tied at the back with a hair clip.

It was surprisingly cool in the afternoon, but not cold enough to stop us riding on the Ferris Wheel together. It's weird how they have the rides set up. Some you pay tickets for at specific booths, which you then supply the ticket to the ride attendant. Only they have a $5 booth, $6 booth and $7 booth, which you only discover when you want to go on a ride that happens to cost more. Then once you wrap your head around the ticket concept, you hit a ride that only takes cash!

It was very confusing and a great way to fleece parents of their money. We gave the Carnival Alley a skip however, much to daughter's dismay. As fun as it may be to put a ball inside a rotating clown's mouth, or pop a ballon with a dart, the prizes are cheap and nasty. She has enough stuffed toys at home, much to my dismay. ;)

Unfortunately, the Carnival of flowers only runs for two weeks, and all the beautiful flower beds we get to see, touch and smell, will be ripped up by Council again. I wonder if keen gardeners are allowed to stalk the workers and ask for free plants, LOL.

Why I love chickens

We have a few breeds of chickens here, plus some crosses, which are related to this beautiful chooky, Gumnut! Seeing the new escapee, it reminded me to post some egg pictures of the varities we're now seeing in the nests.

From left to right, starting at the front: the pale cream is a New Hampshire egg; the small light green is a bantam araucana; the olive green is the cross, like Gumnut, and the darkest is that of a Barnevelder.

As a note to Jacqui from Life in the Dome, my crosses started laying at 24 weeks, so Gumnut shoulnd't be far behind. Your little girl definitely found the best nest of all, LOL, and what a character. If she escapes too much, don't forget you can trim one of her wings. She definitely seems to want to be a house chicken though.

I've been really happy with the health of my chickens this year. We've gotten through winter without so much as a sniffle. The large New Hampshires and Barnevelder girls have laid all throughout winter. The best layer of all has been the New Hampshires. They've pushed out an egg a day, each, since they started laying. They only missed about 2 days over winter.

I'll share pictures of Gumnuts sisters when I can find a sunny enough day.

Dr Who Daddy

Well Father's Day has come and gone, but we had a very special day of it because we made stuff especially for Dad. He went to work (as normal) and when I woke, I started thinking about how we could make his day special after he returned in the afternoon.

What to do...what to do? I always make him a cake but I wanted to do something extra special this time. Now for all of those who don't know, my Dave has been a Doctor Who fan from way back. He even joined the Doctor Who fan club when he was a teenager, and met John Pertwee in person. We even have the photos to prove it, LOL. Such a fan was he, that he even commissioned two knitted (extra long) scarfs to match the ones Tom Baker used to wear!

So I've always had Doctor Who memorabilia stashed away in the cupboards, on the bookcase and sometimes even on the floor after our daughter has had a play with them. Yes, I'm afraid Dave is grooming the next Doctor Who fan in the family to continue his legacy. So any guesses what this is...

It's bigger on the inside!

Empty cereal boxes and empty cardboard boxes unite! Don't ask me why I decided to make a TARDIS, but when I got up on Father's Day, that's precisely what I did. There was a willing worker with our daughter as well. She helped pop out all the windows after I scored them with a blade.

TARDIS panel number two!

It was really simple to do, but still took a bit of fiddling to put it all together. I sort of knew I wouldn't get it painted in time before Dave got home, but I wanted to at least have it's recognisable form. As we were making it, I suggested to our daughter I turn it into a box - by having the roof come off. My clever girl then said it would be a great box to store all his Doctor who toys (ahem, "collectors items", as Dave likes to put it) in! But why stop there, what about the cake?

Darlek says: exterminate!
K9 replies: Negative, I will protect my Master

This was just a simple chocolate cake with lemon icing. I put a touch of rum essence in the cake for Dad too, LOL. The tie down the bottom is in the spirit of the latest Doctor Who incarnation, compliments of Matt Smith. "Ties are Cool!", is his catch phrase, which is what we put on the card we made for Dad too - in the shape of a bow tie. It was such a lot of fun to do, and this is what Dave came home to...

A Doctor Who convention

A setting suitable for any Doctor Who Dad! We even got to use one of his commissioned knitted scarfs. The TARDIS is yet to be finished, which I will follow up with later. Not a bad present, considering most of it was made from recycled materials. The only thing which wasn't, was the PVA glue and masking tape.

I hope you had a good day on Father's Day too. Sadly, some don't get the luxury of spending it with their fathers, as even Dave lost his dad to cancer four years ago. But even small gestures can mean a great deal, on a day especially for Dads.