Sydney Writers' Festival - The Kids' Big Day Out

Today is the official start of the Sydney Writers' Festival*. It will go until Sunday 3rd June and features writers from all over Australia as well as a number of international ones.

Today KelpieBlossom, and two of her friends, attended a full-day writing class for 9-12 year olds taken by Tashi author, Anna Fienberg. The kids learnt about drawing on their own feelings to make imaginary stories seem real. They were also set a number of writing exercises. KelpieBlossom wrote a great story called The Ball and the Chest but didn't want it reproduced here. She was happy, however, to share this great exercise about an imaginary home.

Home by KelpieBlossom

I have a small home but everyone can get around. I have a small backyard - for my jumbo jet; a little pond - to fit my 300ft yacht; a teeny paddock at the back of my house - for my pony and 3000 of his closest friends.

I have a simple little bedroom to fit 900 of my toys. And a cinema. My bathroom is...o - kay... It only has a TV on the floor, a water feature, automatic toilets, golden walls and a lifetime supply of bubblebath.

The kitchen is only big enough to fit a giant. It has three fridges, two ovens, eight stoves, one tap, a pantry the size of my room and a cupboard - the size of a church.

Did I mention we have a robot that cleans our house everyday? My mum and dad's room is a dump. It only has a king-size bed, a carpet made out of golden silk, a wardrobe the size of a cinema and diamonds, sent from the Queen, hanging up.

Getting onto the playroom. It's messy, it's dumb and I want another one. It can only fit 6,000 of my toys, a huge golden couch, a home cinema and a silky carpet.

Isn't it so embarrassing to have a dump like this for a home?!

KelpieBlossom was so excited by this workshop and said "I would do one every weekend if I could".

At 5pm Padawan Learner and I crossed the Bridge to meet up with KelpieBlossom to go the Kids' Night Out. An event where the kids listen to popular children's authors and illustrators talk about their work. There are also the obligatory book purchasing and signing opportunities...

Image courtesy www.swf.org.au: Bernard Gallate getting suggestions from the audience for his latest book

We listened to Jackie French talk about her pet Wombat Mothballs; we heard Bruno Bouchet talk about how snot can be used as a weapon to fight aliens and helped Bernard Gallate write alternate endings for his next book.

As usual it was a great night out with our library weighing heavy with the new, signed, purchases (Diary of a Wombat, Tashi the Story of a Boy, Lab Rats in Space).


*for those who like to debate the positioning of apostrophes - this is the official placement of the SWF apostrophe.

Last Chance to Choose an Alias

So far the consensus is that 007 would be a good alternative alias for Husband No. 1. It projects a strong, suave and sophisticated person who is the employee of M. All good so far. However, given 007's reputation in the womanising stakes I'm thinking that 006 or 005 may be more suitable.

If you have an alternative alias you should post it to the comments section before we make a decision. Yes, that means all of you who read this blog but don't comment...

"Our favourite park" by KelpieBlossom* and Padawan Learner

Dear Family and Friends,

Our favourite park in Sydney is the "Spiderweb Park" (AKA Bradfield Park Playground) in Kirribilli. It is very new. A rusty set of swings used to be there. Now there is a nice playground with lots of big rope "spiderwebs". It is under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and you can see the opera house.




It also has a great game of twister!

and two big trees for shade, a harbour-bridge rocker and somewhere for little kids to play

It's not the biggest park we go to but it has the best view.

We hope you will come to visit us soon so we can take you there!

Love KelpieBlossom* and Padawan Learner

*Kelpie has asked to change her alias to KelpieBlossom.

Wallabies a bit wobbly but got there in the end

We all schlepped off to Telstra Stadium to watch the "Wobblies" beat Wales last night. Not that it was looking that way with 30 seconds to go. For most of the match I was thinking it's lucky Telstra Stadium puts on good pre-show entertainment otherwise I'd be seriously wondering why we made such an effort to go to the boon docks.

Do you realise HOW FAR Homebush Bay (aka Sydney Olympic Park) is from the City? Would you go to Kwinana to watch the Eagles or Dockers play? Actually its not so much the distance, as the traffic. Last time I went to Homebush was to watch U2 play. It took us two hours to get there, they played for 1 1/2 hours and it took us 2 hours to get home. That was by train.

This time we thought we'd go by car. I think it may be illegal to go there by car, but we did it anyway. And guess what? Got a car park within 500m. Admittedly there were only 42,000 people at the match.

Anyway, even if you don't like the Rugby the pre-match entertainment is worth it. Not cheerleader entertainment you understand, general people entertainment. There are always loads of food stalls (I was picked on by the crowd for eating Vegetarian Pad Thai), fun games and people doing silly things.

Padawan Learner only goes for the pre-match fun. He ate two Hot Dogs, one icecream and had fun on the horizontal Bungy (where you try to score tries while running along a air filled cushion attached to a bungy rope). There was live music and many opportunities to open your wallet to purchase merchandise.

So you will understand that the Wallabies' poor showing until the last 30seconds was a bit of a let down after the pre-match excitement. Kelpie drew pictures, Padawan Learner entertained the guy in front by kicking his chair and Husband No. 1 looked generally in pain. Having never been to a Rugby International I thought it was all cool. In fact I think I actually "get" the game now. The Welsh guy sitting behind us was also having fun.

In the end it was all worth it. The Wobblies won, the Welsh guy behind us cried and we drove home in the comfort of our own car.

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