First go at The Show

Ella's Mummy and Daddy agreed to us taking her to the Canberra Show, her first visit to The Show, and our first visit for many, many years.

With no real idea of what The Show was all about Ella was quick to establish her goals for our Show outing! She wanted a ride on the "teacup ride" (like the little "Mad Hatter's Tea Party" ride at Floriade) and she wanted to try fairy floss (an amount the size of her hand-her Mummy's rule). The fairy floss goal was probably my fault as I've done a lot of fairy floss talk trying to get her to have a more positive attitude to the spiders' webs festooned all over our garden.

Our goal was to show her the "country to the city" experience that we think is the best part of the Show for kids. Accordingly we walked her straight past the rides and sideshow alley and up to the farmyard nursery for our first stop.

As expected she enjoyed about two hours here getting to feed and pet some adorable baby farm animals.



including the baby pigs in the outside enclosure

and some very sooky donkeys who loved having their ears scratched.

After checking out some big cows in the judging ring ("They are bulls, Banny", Ella corrected me)and the beautifully groomed horses and riders in the dressage events we sat and ate our lunch under the shady trees (all wholesome and all brought from home) before heading down sideshow alley in search of the teacup ride.

Ella found the dodgem cars too tempting however. Rob was amazed at her ability to channel her speed fiend Daddy on the Go Kart track. She did all the steering (mostly) and laughed with delight the whole time even when the teenage boys' cars bumped her.


And just as much fun was the steep, speedy but soft ride down the inflatable shark(??) which Ella repeated over and over and over and over again, all with this look of pure delight on her face. Getting her off this ride in the end was the only thing we came close to having a disagreement about all day.

She ate her handful size clump of fairy floss and was generous enough to offer Rob and me some microscopic size pieces too. We bought it for her right at the end when she was so exhausted she didn't have the energy to notice that we'd quickly stuffed the rest of the fairy floss pack in the bin when her handful was all eaten.

When I asked Ella how she'd rate the Canberra Show out of ten she counted up to 50 for me and then announced she'd give it 101!