The Hall of Show Bags (aka the royal easter show)

now that's more like it! the day dawned hot and sunny for our trip to the Royal Easter Show at Homebush and off we set, having only had the Maclean Show as comparison....well, it was a bit like going to glastonbury but with less mud, more sun, fewer dogs on strings, more concrete. i'll admit it, it was only like glasto in that it was big with lots of stuff going on.

when we got there of course we separated into two groups, those dictated to by the needs of a 4yr old (i.e. me and james) and those child free and hence able to please themselves (i.e lynne and phil). I'm not sure what they saw (but i think it involved cows and wood chopping) but i know we saw a lot of miming by some probably very overheated actors in giant dora and fifi costumes. In between the bursts of incredulous excitement and dancing we of course tried to calm Caitlin down by taking her around the fairground and putting her on as many rides as we could cram in. And of course there was the pandemonium of the petting zoo just to ensure that she maintained her zen like calm.









we managed to squeeze in some stuff for us like a pretty thrilling avant garde acrobat troupe who were just back from Edinburgh (or on their way? can't remember), saw a man fishing standing on a big tank, and i got to enjoy another one of those ferris wheel type rides which scare me rigid but i'm determined not lose face in front of my daughter! through the miracle of the modern day technology called texting (and you all know how much i hate that) we were able to rendez vous periodically with lynne and phil, and lynne's very hungover boyfriend, dave. i think the blur of noise and colour that was caitlin was a warning beacon by and large. Or maybe that was just dave's hangover. Just to finish off the hugely relaxing (ha ha ha) and massively enjoyable day (and i DO mean that) we decided to go to what we thought was the jokily named 'Showbag Hall'. Now for those of you not in the know, a 'showbag' is a bag you can buy at the shows, obviously, and it's usually filled with cheapo toys and sweeties. it's often themed around tv shows, films etc. In our previous exposure to showbags, we had bought them from a caravan parked at Maclean Showground in a very Mitchell And Webb dodgily surreal moment. so little prepared us for the gargantuan effort that was THE SHOWBAG HALL (of dreams? build it and they will come...in their thousands). Imagine the SECC full of stands hawking every type of merchanised gift packs you can imagine, it was dizzying for us, let alone what it did for Caitlin's blood pressure. the flow of the crowd swirled us past a myriad of consumer options and eventually we hung on grimly to one island and gave caitlin a choice...she picked...the fairy one. out of all the tat she got, only the backpack and the purple face mask are still completely intact. overwhelmed by the mass of people we swam for the open sea and got out of there. we eventually managed to get back to the homeward bound train station, where we were joined by a fairy on the platform. she stayed awhile with us...but she didn't want to confuse anyone on the train into thinking there was a fairy on the train so Caitlin was returned to us, happily spoilt and glowing with her day of fun. Needless to say, phil fell asleep on the ride home and james and i took it in shifts to look after the little band of weary travellers. What a day.