November 22. Day 327. Cruel to be kind

Not all that long ago, the Grand Arbour at South Bank Parklands was looking just a bit sad.
The bougainvillea has been pruned back rather savagely leaving no blooms and was not a lot more than dry looking twigs.
Look at it now.  On reflection, it's bloomin marvellous again.
Sometimes a bit of tough love is required. You really do have to be cruel to be kind.
That's easy to say but implementing it in just the right measure is really tricky.
Being tough is as difficult on the person administering the punishment as it is on the subject, sometimes more difficult.
Yep, who'd be a parent? (Did I say parent? I surely meant gardener).
Either way, you'd have to say the results are worth the effort.

October 3. Day 277. Go take a running jump

You know what it's like. You are heading off to breakfast but you see a wall and you just have to leap off it for a bit, right?
Okay, that never happens to me. Nothing distracts me when en route to my daily date with the bowl of Uncle Toby's Plus Protein with skim milk (no, this is not a sponsored post but you should totally try the stuff, it's delicious).*
But it seems I have got it all wrong (not about the cereal, it's still delicious). If I really want to make sure nothing comes between me and my cereal obsession I should do what these teens were doing at South Bank this morning and go take a running jump.
The boys (from left) Dalton Collis, 17, Les Hampson, 18, and Izaac Fabian, 16, were practicing parkour which they explained was a way of overcoming obstacles to get from point A to point B in the fastest and most efficient way possible. You run, climb, swing, vault, leap or roll - whatever it takes - to make that bee line to your destination.
It was just after 7am when I ran into the boys and they'd been at it since 5am and had been heading off to find something to eat when they saw this spot and decided it just demanded a few more practice leaps.
Clearly they just love it. While other teen boys (you know who I'm talking about here Mr O) were still tucked up in bed making the most of the school holidays these boys were really throwing themselves into it. Izaac also explained how he had invested about $60 in raw materials and was planning on building launch pads in his back yard. And then after a polite chat the boys were off.
Two hours later on the other side of the river in Ann Street across from the Cathedral I happened to see the same trio leaping off another wall obviously having found their breakfast and recharged their tanks.
True to their word. no obstacle was too big.

* Uncle Toby's feel free to send me large boxes in gratitude for this mention

August 23. Day 236. Land Ahoy

I sometimes think I would enjoy a cruising holiday and then I remember one critical detail - I hate boats.
Actually, that's not entirely true. Boats are fine, until they get on the water with me on them.
It's just I have this strange aversion to spewing my guts up.
Only once have I really wished I could die and that was on a ferry between Greece and Italy in a wild storm.
I was on deck in the bucketing rain heaving into a rubbish bin. That could have been explained in part by the Turkish lighter fluid Raki we'd been drinking but there have been other instances where there was no alcohol involved.
The whale watching tour where everyone else was gasping at the whales and I was gasping into a plastic bag; the time I went out on a Coastguard boat for a feature story, the list goes on.
The result is never pretty.
So boats are fine as long as they are on dry land, like those at the Maritime Museum.
I like this view taken this morning just as the sun was burning off the early morning fog to reveal another beautiful Brisbane day, a day which I believe is best enjoyed on dry land.

August 14. Day 227. Having a real spray

As someone who prefers the arts to sport, I confess to giving just a little cheer when crowds gather to see an artist at work.

So it was in the city today when Aaron the spray paint artist was creating his masterpieces at the Casino end of the Queen Street Mall today.

It has to be said that spray cans are generally more closely assoicated with defacing public property than serious artwork but in Aaron's hands the results are amazing.

He says he is self taught and heads to the mall three days a week as overspray art is his day job and only means of income. He's been spray painting for 10 years but has been arty his whole life previously trying his hand at sculpture and drawing.

In the short time I watched, he sold two works for $50 each and there were plenty of others (myself included) prepared to throw coins into his bowl because just watching the artwork coming together was fascinating.

Funny. People don't seem quite as prepared to pay up every time I have a spray no matter how colourful it is.

July 13 Day 195. Well that's odd

As the Sesame Street song goes "One of these things is not like the others".
Yes, the exhibit in the middle of the top row isn't behind glass. That's Lucy, my 10-year-old niece, and she's gasping at the Odditoreum at the State Library of Brisbane.
This is a fantastic little exhibition of weird, odd and just crazy exhibits from the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. But they are not labelled and children are issued with their own cards so they can make up what they see. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction but for the most case the explanations the kids come up with are are hilarious. Children have such wonderful imaginations. So a lump of ochre pigment was, according to a nine-year-old, solidified elephant wee. And a giant licorice covered shoe was not a prop used in the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony but a device used to train guide dogs.
As the old journalist's saying goes "never let truth get in the way of a good story"

July 4. Day 186. Shout it, shout it, shout it out loud

Normally I would spend State of Origin night hiding from any broadcast but tonight I suspect there will be no avoiding it.
I will have a house full of Origin-loving fans most of them children and children, in my experience, have no volume switch. This could just be a manufacturing fault in the model of child I own but to this point  I have yet to be convinced that children are capable of any volume other than loud or extra loud.
But let's face it children are not the only ones capable of shouting it from the roof top especially when it comes to barracking for their favourite sports team. This is ABC broadcaster Steve Austin this morning showing how the "Queenslander" chant is done.
I've said it before that I don't buy the whole Queenslander thing but I do admire the football fans' passion. I just don't get it. It's just not cricket. Now that's a game worth shouting about. Bring on the Ashes....

June 29. Day 181. Laugh, Kookaburra laugh

When I was a child my mother told me that if a Kookaburra laughed it meant someone had wet the bed.
So if I heard the distinctive Kooraburra cackle, I'd spend the day looking around trying to spot the bed wetter.
Clearly the kookaburra has a wicked sense of humour.
The fact is, it's hard to hear that laugh and not get a smile on your face. It's totally infectious.
Mind you, this bloke didn't seem to think it was much of a laughing matter when a Noisy Miner flew in and took up a perch on the electric wire right beside him this morning.
He (or perhaps she. Kookaburra sexing is not one of my specialist subjects) took off with great haste.
Or perhaps Mr Kookaburra has heard the childhood spoof song:
Kookaburra sits on electric wire, 
jumping up and down with his pants on fire.
 Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, 
Kookaburra. Hot your pants must be
Or maybe the Kookaburra took off because he decided Queensland wasn't the place to live right now. After all we all know Kookaburra, gay your life must be....
Now that's no laughing matter

June 21. Day 173. Go ahead and jump

In a former like as an editor of a parenting magazine, I wrote a feature about the dangers of trampolines.
Injury experts filed my head with statistics about broken bones and even about small boys losing a scrotum after coming off and landing spread-eagled between the bars or springs.
It rather put me off trampolines - until we bought one. We put in heavy duty mats and put in place strict rules restricting use to one child at a time and there were no injuries. It was totally the best thing we ever bought. It was well used and well loved and a great source of exercise or sometimes just a nice shady place under the tree to read a book or chill.
We've moved and no longer have a trampoline but the kids across the road do and they use it all the time. This is five-year-old Kirralee showing off her stuff. Brilliant

June 11. Day 163. Throw me a Lifeline

Books can take you anywhere. Books can provide an education, an escape or the perfect procrastination.
A book is great on the beach or by the pool or filling in time on public transport. A book is very good in bed providing great action between the covers.
Yep, I love books and even though I consider myself a bit of a gadget girl I am very old school when it comes to books. I need an object to put on the bookshelf and I need to be able to turn pages and fold down corners.
So today, for the second time this year, I was at a Lifeline Bookfest at the Convention Centre stocking up. I do confess, however, I haven't read a single page of the books I bought at the event in January but I will, eventually.
On a rainy public holiday there were large crowds working their way through the millions of second hand books on sale. I loved the number of parents stocking up on kids books often with the little ones "helping".
Today's picture is of Emily who was helping mum Monica choose some new bedtime stories.

June 2. Day 154. Burn baby, burn

Things were absolutely smokin' around Musgrave Park today.
The park, which is recent weeks has made headlines after being occupied first by protesting indigenous Australians and then by Greek festival goers, has this weekend been taken over by the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service for its annual firefighter competition.
Hundreds of men in uniform, what more reason could a girl need to go and check out what's going on?
Because of a large dose of good luck rather than any planning at all, I arrived as the opening ceremony was taking place.
It seemed totally fitting - given all the controversy last month over the extinguishing of the ceremonial fire  when the Brisbane Sovereign Embassy was shut down - that a local indigenous dance group would demonstrate how to rub sticks together to make flames
The Nuckkual Yaggera performers were on fire. If the rest of the events are this hot it will be a very successful weekend indeed.

May 26. Day 147. Give me a Hi-5

William W Purkey's quote "You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching" is often repeated and something many adults aspire to achieve.
What I love about kids is that it comes so naturally. Somewhere along the way we learn to be self conscious or shy or sensible and we forget how to dance and it takes large amounts of alcohol to again move with the music.
Today the preschool set had their dancing shoes (and an awful lot of tulle) on and were at QPAC to see kids mega group Hi-5 perform.
The dancing didn't stop inside the Concert Hall. The grooving continued outside onto the Cultural forecourt and picnic lawn where there were high fives all round.
Watching them took me back. My "baby" was introduced to performing arts at concerts by The Wiggles and Hi-5. In some ways it seems like only yesterday. In other ways it seems like a different lifetime.
I no longer recognise any of the members of Hi-5 and by year's end there will be only one of the original Wiggles in the coloured skivvies.
That matters to us adults. It matters not at all to the kids. As long as the music continues they will continue to dance like nobody is watching.
Now I'll give a high five to that.

May 12. Day 133. Heavenly

Absolutely too nice to stay inside today so my neighbour Noela and I strolled down the hill to the St Andrew's Church heritage fair.
There was a small but enthusiastic crowd with the families taking advantage of the face painting and jumping castle as well as the obligatory sausage sizzle. How sweet is this little one? Don't you just love those puppy dog eyes?
For the big kids vintage cars and historic wedding dresses were on display and there was a multicultural food fair and craft stalls.
But what really caught my eye was the Sunday school kids who were dressed as clowns and roamed the church grounds performing.
Silently they mined their praises. One waved a fan with a sign "I'm a fan for Jesus". Another proudly displayed a spray bottle labelled "Hair Pray" and a third flashed shoe inner soles with some pun along the lines of devoting your inner soul. Very punny. Who would have thought religion was such a joke?

May 11. Day 132. Skiddadle

Happiness is five types of crayons, at least that's what the authoritative source You're a Good Man Charlie Brown the musical would have us believe.
Okay it's not the Oxford dictionary but I agree. A blank piece of paper and coloured things to create with equal one big ball of good, clean fun (actually it is often every messy but that's half the fun too).
There was a whole lot of mess being created in the foyer of the ABC building at South Bank this morning as nine artists took part in a One Word One Day project which gave them just three hours to create an artwork inspired by mystery word. The project aims at raising funds for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation with all the works being auctioned off  to help buy books for children in remote and isolated communities.
The word was Skiddadle, a quite delicious sounding word meaning to run away hurriedly or to flee. Captured here are the deft fingers of children's author and illustrator Stephen Axelsen at work.
I didn't see how it ended. I had to skiddadle but I love the child-like enthusiasm he showed breaking into his new box of pastels.