Monday, October 5, 2009

A weekend in Canberra

I spent most of the long weekend in Canberra visiting my darling parents. Given I live in a shoe box in Sydney surrounded by many other shoe boxes I tend to spend the first twenty-four hours of any trip to my parents' house (how fabulous, an actual house) carrying on about the space. I make lame jokes about intercoms and east wings and airplane hangers, and my parents, God love them, just smile at me patiently and hand me cups of tea until it passes.

But once I've finished marvelling at the possibilities of space in Canberra I start whingeing about everything else about Canberra. And I can because I used to live there, that's why.

Only in Canberra would you find brochures like this:

And this:


Only in Canberra would you find parks with rather pretty blossom trees and absolutely no people:


Only in Canberra would you find signs that make you laff when you really, really shouldn't:


And what luck! I managed to snap Canberra's only two cars in this photo. You can see them centre right. Here they are enlarged for your viewing pleasure:




Was it a long weekend where you are? Do you see my 'Dog and Cat Laws in the ACT' and raise me a lamer brochure?

9 comments:

Mad Cat Lady said...

I also laughed out loud at the road sign - awesome, truly awesome.

You make me want to go to Canberra.

I have a vague recollection from a trip there (in which i immediately got sick because I'd never been further south than Mackay before and couldn't cope with the cold of ACT winter)of there being some rather lovely bookshops there.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

Cats are natural anarchists and thus their reaction would be to say "Brochure? I spit on your filthy brochure! Now, bring me lunch!"

squib said...

Goodness! I'm going to keep a careful eye on willows from now on

Anonymous said...

That's OK Kettle, we're used to 'Canberra bashing' - it's a national past-time!
It was lovely to see you, and little Kettle of course.
Here's another Canberra sign for you:
DRINK DRIVE
DIE IN A DITCH
(I think that DIE was in red too.)

Kettle's Mum

Kettle said...

I'm glad you laughed at the sign too, MCL; sometimes I suspect I laugh at totally inappropriate things but as long as I'm not the only one laughing I can keep pretending I'm actually sane, eh.

Ramon ever since I found out cats have secret Jellicle names I've given them a wide berth, out of respect.

Squib I love how the willow has been classified as a 'weed of national significance': what an honour.

And dear Mumzerella, tell me good woman, did you laugh when you first saw the drink driving sign too? Come join the merry band of slightly uncouth, inappropriate laughers Mad Cat Lady and I are forming!

Catastrophe Waitress said...

i think you're on some kind of commission for Canberra Tourist board, because now i want to go for a holiday there! i LOVE that first poster too.

how alarming though, what on earth is wrong with Willows? am i bad for liking them? are they on the out now? will we see hate-crimes against willow trees?

sounds as though you had a lovely long weekend, Mme Kettle. no long weekends for us lot though. just work for me, it's only going to get crazier still, what with Christmas approaching. i feel like the Grinch.

Kettle said...

Hmm, I seem to be giving entirely the wrong idea about Canberra. Sadly the dog and cat laws thingo was a brochure, full of information, about what dogs and cats can and can't do in the ACT (despite any anarchist tendencies they may have). I wish it had, if you'll pardon the pun, even the smallest lick of irony, but no. Canberra takes itself very, very seriously; you don't want to visit there! (Unless you go hang with my Mum and Dad; they're ace.)

I'm totally mystified about willows too, Ms P (I should have read the bloody brochure) but I'm with Ms Squib and keeping an eye on them from now on.

Ms P I fear you are working too much. When are Alain and Henri arriving to pick you up and whisk you away?

Catastrophe Waitress said...

no time soon, unforch.
in fact
i see it getting busier and busier -
they'd have me working every bloomin day if they could. really.
they called me today asking me to come in, then texted me about working extra hours on Thursday.

gahhhh.
i'm really tired of the constant interruptions, so that even my time off is interrupted by work demands.

Kettle said...

Sounds awful, Ms P. I think you need a cabana boy to take your calls, respond to texts, and fix you drinks with little umbrellas. Perhaps we could go halvies?