Monday, May 4, 2009

The Annual Pumpkin Festival

Leaving Our Nation's Capital, we headed back towards Sydney and passed a small town, Collector. A small town with a big event - the annual pumpkin festival. Driving into the tiny town, cars lined the road and people were flocking towards what I could only assume was the Pumpkin Fun (or a horrific train wreck). Locals had made pumpkin men and pumpkin posters and pumpkin signs - there was pumpkin celebration aplenty!



Excitedly, we wondered what things there could possibly be. Biggest pumpkin, pumpkin scones and pies, pumpkin carving were all ideas we wagered on. All that and more! My favourite was probably the 'make a scarecrow with a pumpkin head' competition. There were about a dozen men stuck on sticks in various states of dress and expression, stretching down the side of a field (a field that had the obligatory vintage car show, baby farm animals and metal work displays).

The main hall held the pumpkin competition - and the winner of largest
pumpkin:


Not to mention the weirdest looking pumpkin:



And the smallest edible pumpkin:



It seemed that Gary Poile and only about 3 other people submitted any entries to any of the comps. I noticed Gary had also busted out the pumpkin pie and scone entry as well as several other pumpkin entries. Go Gaz. I guess Collector doesn't have a huge population to draw entrants from. But huge thumbs up to the efforts of the few that did!

Capital Take 2

We then trekked on to Parliament House for more snaps. I would have included them in the last post however for some reason my computer hates multiple snaps. Perhaps I should take heed.






Tim and I. Even my shadow looks champagne thirsty.

Following all this hard work, we headed out for breaky with J and GSquared. They had found a wee cafe in Belconnen that served a two course champagne breakfast and rightly thought I may be interested. J and I both ordered it - eggs benedict with a chocolate and strawberry crepe and dreamy bubbles. Dreamy bubbles that made me very snoozy all the way home.

Our Nation's Capital

This weekend we had a short sojourn to Canberra. It was my brother's 30th and also my sister would be in town. She'd given my The Best Job Ever a fortnight ago - a wad of cash, a list and basically let me go nuts furnishing her new house! So I shopped, I crammed the car full of homeware goodies, and we headed to Canberra to have some fun.

Our 'one show only' night in town was fun - cold, but fun. The following morning Tim wanted to get up early to get some snaps prior to breakfast so I went along too to get used to the new camera.

The trees this time of year are spectacular and it was a cold, crisp and sunny morning.


Old Parliament House, from across the lake.


A bridge. I was attempting Art.


A cycle rack, and more attempted Art.


This was the underside of one of the buildings. I think Canberra council may have been attempting Art.


Ah pretty trees!

Next stop was new Parliament House...

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Tim found this at work. Snigger.