New Life at the Ekka

Before we move onto the terminal blog entry, a little light relief.

It's Ekka week, which explains the coughs and splutters and general chill that's around at the moment.

Ekka, you may or may not recall, is the affectionate Queensland name for the Agricultural Show we all love to hate to love, the Royal Queensland Show or Royal Queensland Exhibition.

We go every year - at the moment - and marvel at the, how to put it, spectrum of humanity on display as the hundreds of thousands congregate to celebrate all that's Agricultural. Well OK, they congregate to drink beer and go on fair ground rides, but let's be charitable.

Our route round the Ekka this year started off at the Big Oval Stadium Thingy where we celebrated all that's Agricultural by watching a sheep dog going through a trial.

Then we wandered through the sheds of animals, petting things - chickens especially. Poor buggers.

There were sheep and calves and goats and ducks and chicks and all manner of furry four-legged entertainment amongst which swarmed (rather unsteadily) young two-legged devils with cups of food.

I lost Nicole and Eloise temporarily in the dog-and-cat pavilion but found them again after a while in the chickens-in-cages pavilion before exiting to find the Science pavilion by way of the Dagwood Dog stall - hooray! for Nicole, who had to eat the... thing.

The science pavilion was entertaining though and at the QIMR stand Eloise donned a white coat, goggles and hairnet to experiment earnestly, informatively and potentially dangerously with food colouring before topically inspecting cancerous tumour cells beneath a microscope with a scientist who couldn't quite make it down to her educational level.

We then had the pleasure of watching some Singing Females who sang.

It didn't seem like it could be too long before the Showbag Pavilion exerted its ugly pull on us, but we managed to fit in the Ekka Emporium Pavilion where the spending started, and the Woolworths Fresh Food is Good Honest pavilion where we drank coffee and wine but didn't eat fresh food because we were full of, how can I put it, um, junk.

But then we confronted the inevitable and got the Pony Princess showbag in the Heaving Throng before commencing the bribery for an Early Exit because the grown-ups were knackered. The child was knackered too but wouldn't admit it: she was gung-ho for staying for the fireworks.

Sideshow Alley netted us a ride on some dodgems; an eternity spent in the Maze of Mirrors and Eloise a go on the Bungee Ropes. Then we called in ground support and were quite literally out of there.

And that was it for another year.