BORED GAMES

Posted by Sonia Bowditch on Dec 30, 2011 in NEIGHBOURHOOD | 1 comment

Canberra-Nara Peace Park, the perfect picnic spot!

It’s a funny old week, between Christmas and New Year.  Everyone’s off work, trying to relax after the time-consuming and tiring lead up to Christmas, just waiting to get revved up again for New Year’s Eve.  Many folk go away for a few weeks, to visit relatives…or not.  The south coast is a popular spot for many Canberrans

Last year at this time we went to Thredbo and spent each day riding the chairlift up towards Mt Kosciusko, where we’d go for walks and play with snow (yes, even at this time of year!).  The kids enjoyed the bobsled and the indoor pool, too, which has a water slide.

We’re not going anywhere this year, as we recently bought a new house and the bank balance is a wee bit depleted.  Still, there’s plenty to do right where we are.

Yesterday we went on a bush walk around Black Mountain which, thanks to the cooler weather we’ve been having, was both relaxing and invigorating.  And our 5 year old only demanded shoulder rides from Dad a handful of times, but otherwise coped pretty well walking for two hours (with a lengthy fruit-stop at the half way mark).

The kids love bush walking.  On a recent adventure, we came within a metre or so of a kangaroo.  The boys wanted to chase it and fight with it (thinking, perhaps, that all kangaroos are ready to put up their dukes and start boxing) but my daughter was terrified.  My older boy then started taunting her with tales of Bunyips, describing them as “a bit like Kangaroos, but much more vicious.”  Aaahh, the lovely togetherness of the holiday season.

We’re also planning to catch up with friends and maybe go on a picnic.  Our favourite spot is Lennox Gardens which, being home to the Canberra-Nara Peace Park, has a lovely Japanese feel.

The remote-controlled snake: how can you go wrong with a gift like this?

The kids are mostly happy to stay home, though, playing with their Christmas gifts.  The picks of the bunch this year are the Harry Potter boxed set and the Lego sets.  The remote controlled snake is, of course, a winner, as are the bath bombs from Lush (which have created a bathtub ring of such vivid colour that even Gumption will struggle to remove it).  Most days the kids are still in their Jammies at lunchtime, which I think is just fine.

This week is also the week where we seem to play an inordinate amount of board games, despite what my oldest son says, that “board games make you boring.”  I’m quite keen on Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit, but cannot stand Monopoly.  It just goes on and on and on.  With young kids, I think it’s best to stick to simple games like Guess Who or Connect Four.

My husband, on the other hand, is not so content at home for a week doing something close to nothing.  If he’s not working on something, he gets a little edgy.  This week he has dedicated himself to issues of household maintenance.  Hence why he requires a lot of trips to Bunnings, which thankfully is quite close to our place.  Most times he returns from this superstore with a mere handful of screws, the type of which were apparently missing from his well stocked man-shed.  Can’t get too many items at once, I suppose, else he’d have no excuse to return to this Mecca for restless men.

I should say, though, it ain’t always a picnic for me at this time of year.  It’s hard having hubby at home, because it means putting up with an endless broadcast of cricket.  And it travels right through the house, thanks to the portable radio that he carries with him — in the garden, in the kitchen, in the toilet.  Is this the world’s most boring game?  Generally, I don’t mind the dull drone of sport in the background, as long as nothing exciting happens, for then the commentators start screaming and generally carrying on like morons, particularly Kerry O’Keefe.

Aside from the cricket, I’m quite happy pottering at home, perhaps searching for a few recipes to use up the leftover Christmas food.  You know the sort of stuff — turkey carbonara, turkey empanadas, turkey omelette…and don’t even get me started on ham!

I’ve also been kept occupied this week observing all the wildlife around our new place.  I’ve got two kookaburras to hang out with, for starters.  They live in one of the huge gum trees in our backyard and we hear them laughing most mornings (around 4am, worse luck).  We also have possums in the trees and on the roof (though hopefully not in the roof) and just the other day I found a scorpion in the house.  Nice.  Unfortunately, hubby was out at the time (no doubt at Bunnings) so I instructed oldest son to place a large Tupperware container and a heavy book over the wayward creature.

—    that reminds me, did Amanda Whitley recently post something about gender roles and women making sure they can handle all the necessary jobs of life on their own?  Oh, well.  I draw the line at Scorpions —

This week will culminate with New Year’s Eve.  We have no party plans.  There’s too much pressure to have fun on this night, so we resist.  Good times tend to happen when you least expect them, so I’ve learnt to lay low on this evening of evenings.  Last year we had no plans, either, then at the eleventh hour (well, around midday, actually) we received an invitation to our neighbours’ impromptu party.  By the time evening rolled around, we were almost too tired to bother going, but we trudged along for one or two drinks.  At 3am we finally stumbled home (the kids having been put to bed some hours ago) after an unexpectedly great night.  Who’d have picked it?

How are you spending this week and what are your plans for NYE?  Will you be going to any of the events organised for Canberra?

Sonia is a Canberra-based freelance writer, who likes to pitch her thoughts on society and culture in Australia. She is currently completing an MA in Writing and is also Awards Coordinator for the ACT Writers Centre.