bushy park show

This weekend we went to the Bushy Park Show. It’s one of the smaller shows on the Tasmanian Agricultural Show Council’s show calendar each year, and also one of the oldest, having started out as a garden show in 1865.

Bushy Park, if you aren’t familiar, is a major hop growing region in Tasmania. It’s the last hop growing area remaining in the Derwent Valley.

The showground is bordered by hop fields and the beautiful Styx River.

We go to the show most years, but this year Juniordwarf wasn’t so keen. “Do we have to go?” he asked. 

When we told him there would be this,

This looked like something from Dr Who rather than a clown

this,

and this,

  

he reluctantly agreed to come with us.

He did some other things as well, like the haunted house

He came out at the end and said "what were the scary bits?"

and the old favourite, the Lions Club Chocolate Wheel.

 

We saw things like utes,

sheepdog trials

and wood cutting.

We had a good time, although the heat got to us all, so we didn’t stay long. It was a far cry from the same day two years ago when it was cold, raining and miserable. 

camping

Last week Slabs, Juniordwarf and I went camping at Mt Field National Park.

We really love going there, and it's been the subject of several previous posts (examples here and  here). It's wonderful to be so close to such a beautiful place, so peaceful and so far removed from the rest of our lives.

I've already told the story of how Zoe went swimming on our walk to Russell Falls. Here are some photos to tell the rest of the story.

Slabs and Junordwarf did some fishing

Lake Fenton, where we had hoped to see a glorious sunset, but it wasn't to be

The amazing colours of these trees almost made up for the lack of a sunset

They were beautiful trees

Pandani on the Urquhart Track near Lake Dobson

Eagle Tarn

Mt Field from Maydena

Russell Falls

A grateful Juniordwarf and Zoe after the great rescue

Juniordwarf is getting the hang of using the camera

Tyenna River, right where we camped

Tall trees at dusk. They really are massive!

We had only intended to stay for two days, so we weren't too put out when we were told on the Thursday night we would have to leave by 9 am the next morning as they were closing the park due to the forecast high temperatures (forecast 39 degrees, it actually reached 41 in Hobart) and strong winds, combined with the fact that there was a bushfire relatively nearby.

It seemed impossible to imagine, in the cool and still of the evening, that such conditions could eventuate. But eventuate they did, and not long after we got home, the sun came out, the clouds disappeared and Tasmania sweltered and burned.

Late on Friday afternoon, the sky around town looked like this

from the fire that had prompted the precautionary closure of the park. It was nowhere near us, but it was still a fearsome sight. In the following days we heard of heartbreaking losses from communities around the state, especially around the Tasman Peninsula.

Today it is a lot cooler, even though the rest of Australia had its turn for record temperatures, but the fires are still burning and everyone is hoping for some relief very soon.

P365 - Day 351 - the unchristmas tree

I don’t go much into the ‘traditional’ aspects of the festive season. I don’t celebrate a religious Christmas, and I prefer to call the season Xmas.

I think Xmas is a good term, because you can use the ‘X’ to represent whatever you want it to*. 

For me, it’s the end of the year, summer is here and I have enforced leave from work. It’s a good time to spend with family and friends, exchange presents if we like, eat lots of food, and relax a bit.

I see it as very much a summer festival.

I’m not a fan of the winter-like appearance and feel of most traditional ‘Christmas’ decorations, which are entirely appropriate for a Northern Hemisphere winter celebration, but for me seem totally out of place in summer. They are for the winter solstice festivities, which we don’t widely celebrate in this country (I wish we did!).

I wrote a bit about how many elements of our traditional Christmas celebrations have come to us from pre-Christian Winter Solstice festivities, and from other cultures and traditions, back in June.  I find it interesting to find out how different societies have celebrated and commemorated the event through history.

I also find the Summer Solstice traditions interesting and would like to find ways to weave some of them into my summer celebrations. (Probably not the one involving naked dancing around a bonfire at midnight.)

The Summer Solstice occurs on the 22 December. Some people refer to it as Midsummer, while others suggest the Solstice actually marks the beginning of summer. (This is an interesting article, although it refers to the Northern summer solstice, which occurs in June. I assume the science is the same, but just reversed for the Southern Hemisphere.)

I’m leaning towards the ‘beginning of summer’ camp, because the weather we’ve been having so far hasn’t exactly felt summer-like, and our hottest days seem to happen in late January and February, rather than in December.

But I suppose it really doesn’t matter. It’s summer time. It’s time to celebrate.

In past years I’ve put up a rather sad looking baby Xmas tree and embellished it reluctantly with a few Xmas decorations. (Well, there was that one year I decorated it with logos cut out of beer cans . . .)

This year I decided to put my money where my mouth is and dispense with the Xmas tree altogether. Instead, I put up and decorated what I am calling a ‘summer tree’. It’s covered in lots of red and gold ribbons, stars and flowers, as I see these colours as representing the sun in summer. I added on some fake fruit (very classy), some birds – a cockatoo, a kookaburra (this is Australia after all) and a little bird in a nest, which is actually more springtime, but who cares – and to top it off, that most Australian of icons, an ugg boot.

The Summer Tree

The bird section

Yes, I have an ugg boot on my tree. 

Not a single bit of tinsel.

Actually looking at it now, it doesn’t quite look summery enough. It almost looks like it’s getting into autumn. Maybe I need some more colours.

Anyway it’s done now, so that’s it for this year. Juniordwarf is quite impressed with it, and he’s very excited about Christmas. Especially Santa.

While he’s still little, that’s one part of Christmas I’m happy to hang onto. It’s so exciting for him to make his list, sing songs about Santa and have his photo taken. And I love to see him being this excited. It’s such a thrill.

* I read that interpretation of the word somewhere a while ago, but can't remember who it was that said it. However, I believe that the reason it was originally spelled like that was that X is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ.