The sun goes down …

Ah yes dear friends – I’ve actually managed to get another blog entry out inside a week this time. I don’t know how many people follow my blog but I would like to point out to those of you that do, that it’s pretty hard to keep yourself motivated to do this, three years on. And any of you that read this blog and know me personally will understand that the fact that I’m still writing this blog three years on is as close to a miracle as you’re likely to see this side of an aubergine with the visage of Jesus in it.

So. Easter holidays have been ticking along here. The sprog’s had some playmates over and vice-versa – one mum even presented us with a box full of cakes when she brought her son over! Bloody nice they were too – we told her that as much as we’d enjoyed having her son over, she shouldn’t expect an pastries in return as neither of us can cook for shit.

We have a couple of things planned for the holidays, the first of which happened today. We decided to check out the Sydney Easter Show, which is like the grand-daddy of all the little country shows that happen in places like Berry once a month. It takes place at the Sydney Showground, which is located next to the Sydney Olympic Park which is located in the inner-west of NSW’s capital city.

Originally we’d planned to drive up as far as Waterfall and then catch the train in the rest of the way, because there’s regular show trains from Central station which deposit you at the front door of the showgrounds. Only Cityrail are doing major league track works this easter holiday and are running a special schedule, which meant that it would be both time-consuming and inconvenient to travel in that way. At one point we were also going to catch the ferry from Circular Quay to the Olympic Park, up the Parramatta River, but I worked out that this would get us to the show at 11:20am, on a 6:00am start so that was quickly forgotten about. So in the end, we just drove up.

The journey by car to the show, despite travelling during Sydney’s Monday morning rush hour, took two hours. We parked in the P1 cark park right next to ANZ Stadium and a mere 200m from the show’s front door. Cost of parking was a flat fee of $20 which I paid up front. Entry to the show was $32 per adult and $21.50 for kids – so we were down $105.50 before we even started. Funnily enough, whoever we told about going to the show said, “Don’t forget your wallet.” I was beginning to see what they were talking about.

We were one of the first people into the show and so had first crack at some of the exhibits. However the first thing that caught my eye was a Croc shop. On going in we discovered that they were selling Crocs for $10 a pair. I bought three pairs. That’s three pairs at less than half the price of one pair in the shoe shops locally. Mega-bargain.

Anyway – next stop was the racing pigs. We were all keen on seeing this and had been told by friends that it was always over-subscribed and that we should get there early to get a good seat. So in time-honoured fashion we turned up late, in a flustered state and got shit seats. Next to the speaker stack. And it pissed down. Other than that, the pigs were great. The diving bit was good fun, but over far too quickly.

Yes! Racing pigs! And in the mid-ground you can see the ramp they run up to go diving too!

After the pigs we decided to go on the large ferris wheel. For things like the wheel and the other carnival rides you pay in special ride tickets which are a $1 a ticket – discounted if you buy them in bulk. The ferris wheel was 24 tickets – or $24 – or 11 quid in old money for the three of us. It was a very superior ferris wheel with fully sealed cabins with air conditioning. The ride was fine, but the highpoint was watching the woman in the car next to us freaking out and having to get off the ride early on account of a fear of heights that, you would have thought, she’d considered before she got on a 45metre high ferris wheel. Love it.

Alright. So by now we were quite peckish, having eaten some five hours previous at the Albion Park Maccers. We noticed a pizza place and ordered two margherita and one barbecue chicken. And so, because the English people had ordered food, the heavens opened. Fortunately we found cover and stayed sheltered until the cloudburst had passed overhead.

Our next port of call was the NAB Arena where we’d planned to watch the Crusty Demon style motorbike show. I’d warned the sprog on the way there that it would probably be called off on account of the shitty weather – and it turned out that I was right on the money – rain stopped play – sprog mightily pissed off. Cheered sprog up by suggesting he go on some fun rides.

The sprog enjoyed this kid's roller coaster so much, he went on it three times

The only ride that looked like it wouldn’t cause early onset heart-attack in the sprog (he’s not a white-knuckle adrenaline junky like his old dad) was the kid’s roller coaster. The sprog thoroughly enjoyed this ride. In fact he liked it so much that he went on it twice more. Then he and I went on a pirate ship ride which he also enjoyed.

By now I was starting to feel the need for coffee and cake, so we headed off to some of the indoor arenas for a bit of retail therapy. Liz decided to purchase some magic depilatory pad that rubs hair off the skin with what looks like a cross between a Brillo pad and sandpaper. She was amused to hear one lady at the stand say, “So the hair never grows back?” Doh!

On the way out of the retail area we saw a stand doing Chinese massages – I treated the missus to one and me and the sprog wandered off to the electric massage chairs for a slightly cheaper version. Ten minutes later we went back to find her and the massage was still going on – I thought this was pretty good value for money. After she’d finished she explained that the bloke kept trying to up-sell – “You must sit down all day – you need full back massage” etc. She kept saying no. Eventually he drops his price by half and so the missus agreed. Comes to something when you can out-haggle a Chinese stall keeper.

I was toying with the idea of buying this t-shirt, but I'm not sure I'm the customer they had in mind

Anyway – coffee and cake break over we headed to the amphitheatre to see the Psycho Sideshow. We got there 30 minutes early and it was already pretty full, but we managed to secure three seats stage centre. The show was very good – pitched squarely at the kids but with the odd knowing-wink to mum and dad. Sword swallowing, bed of nails, mouse-traps on the tongue were the the order of the day. Very good fun.

The Psycho Sideshow were an entertaining crew, though in all honesty they didn't do anything I haven't seen a busker in Bath do

After the sideshow we headed down to the larger of the two carnival sections of the show – the one with the grown-up rides. The sprog and I had a go on the dodgems and then we all decided we’d had enough. On the way out we had some lovely food – Liz had a huge bowl of mussells and chips for $10 – me and the sprog had a very tasty Mexican meal. Headed for home through the rush hour Sydney traffic and heavy rain. Two hours and ten minutes later we were home. Glad I went to the Easter show, because I’d always have wondered, won’t be going back – diving pigs or not.