brick and kite easter saturday

Today's been a very busy day... filled with walking and looking and photographing.

It all started out fairly ordinarily... I got ready and got to the bottom of the stairs when Ma appeared around the corner. We headed off to the supermarket and did a reasonably quick shopping trip... a combination of neither of us needing that much stuff and wanting to make sure that we had enough time to get to the Convention Centre.

We even managed to sneak in a short look around Target so I could look for some new dress pants since I somehow got a giant rip in the inner thigh of my current ones this week. Sadly they didn't have much on offer, so I'll take a look in the city next week, or have another look next weekend.

After the usual unpacking, we headed off to the Convention Centre, found a park by the Parade Grounds and walked along the Torrens to Brick-a-laide.

Thankfully unlike last year's Bricktopia, everything this year was inside, including the spot for waiting to go into the exhibition... although weirdly, no actual queue... just a large open area for people to sit around on the floor in (they really could have done with some more chairs).

I think possibly next year, if it's on the Easter weekend again, we may need to go on the Friday... or if we do go on Saturday, we actually go to the very first session and do the shopping later.

It was just insanely crowded, even more so than Bricktopia was, and much, much more so than the Sydney Brick Show. And I know that the primary audience is kids, and all of the displays are down at a height for kids to be able to see them, but just the fact that they stick their heads clear into the displays and don't move, or are completely spatially unaware, was a little frustrating.

And at a certain point I realised that I actually wasn't really in the moment... I was viewing everything through the camera and not really seeing it properly. But then it was also kind of hard to see a lot of things due to the sheer crush of people.

Also due to the lighting in the Convention Centre plus the fact that I was using my telephoto lens to even be able to get anywhere near some of the models, a bunch of the photos I took ended up a little bit soft.

One of the seemingly unofficial mascots for Brick-a-laide were these Lego sheep... they seemed to be everywhere, not least of all in this big display of dozens and dozens of them, even if most of them were these weird yellow zombie sheep.

There were a lot of cool displays, although a bunch of them were things that were at Bricktopia last year.

Among my favourites were the two Hobbit displays (Laketown and the Barrel Escape), the giant red bridge complete with lights and the airport setup. Oh and a number of the brick portrait pieces, particularly Wonder Woman.

All things considered, it was a pretty good venue, although for some reason I kind of expected there to be more displays... and I'm not sure if there was any possible layout that would have allowed for a better flow of people... because, well, people.

When we'd done all of the main area, we wandered into the secondary area which held all the retail stalls. There was also a little stand selling Brick-a-laide printed bricks with the name and date and whatnot on them... and I could resist getting one.

The other thing I couldn't resist was the life size version of the Lego mug that was released a couple of weeks back. And getting one from Brick-a-laide saved me at least $10 on what it would have been if I'd ordered one from the Lego website.

We called it quits at about that point... we stopped off for something to drink and then headed off... doing our best to avoid the bogan, racist, xenophobic parade of morons that was leaving the banks of the Torrens at the same time we were leaving the Convention Centre.

Since we didn't have any other plans for the rest of the day... and it looked like avoiding the city was the better option, we figured we might as well head down to Semaphore and check out the kite exhibition.

We weren't expecting a lot, since there didn't seem to be any wind, but once we got down to the beach there was actually a decent display on.

One of the interesting things this year though was that we just happened to be there at the same time that the announcer guy was talking to one of the kite flyers, Robert Brasington, who also happened to have a ton of kites up in the air (and given what I now know, he's usually had the kites we really liked each year as well).

Specifically, the ones in the photos above, but also the one at the very top of the post, as well as the other mosaic ones above (and the bird-like kite below). He seriously does a good kite. And it turns out that my Angel's Play kite is by him as well.

Even so, we didn't stick around too long... there was only so much stuff to photograph, and since we were there later than we've been in previous years, the place was packed with people. Plus, I didn't have a hat with me, and the morning which had started out very grey and overcast had become decidedly sunny.

So we headed over to the Palais Hotel to grab some lunch.

And I will say that they do a decent chicken schnitzel at the Palais.

But that was pretty much it... after lunch we had another quick look at the kites and then headed back here and called it a day.

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saturday with bowerbird and fresh air

Sometimes you can have too much if a good thing... not often, you understand, but sometimes.

I think I had too much fresh air today, and now I'm all sleepy.

One of the good things about having more space in my apartment is that weirdly it seems easier to keep tidy. I'm guessing it's the "place for everything, everything in it's place" thing, and the fact that with more room than the old place everything is more spread out anyway so it doesn't look as messy.

That's the long way around of saying that it doesn't take me very much time or effort to get the place looking ship-shape on a Saturday morning.

It was a decidedly chilly morning, so I dug out one of my scarves and headed downstairs to wait for Ma. I've obviously officially broken my streak of finding Ma down there, but it wasn't too long before she rocked up and we headed off to the supermarket.

Food, blah blah blah... options to cook in colder weather, blah blah blah... it's good when the checkout girl knows how to pack a bag, blah blah blah.

So, you know, pretty much the same as usual.

After I unpacked we headed off to Bowerbird.

This particular one kind of snuck up on us... I knew that it was coming up, but it was only when Ma texted me yesterday to ask that I realised it was on this weekend.

There were some new vendors, but I did notice that you could pretty much sum up the layout according to the following... quirky cards, fashion items, jewellery, homewares (mostly lamps and cushion covers/tea towels). Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just noticed it more this time than I have in the past.

And Ma continued her ongoing project of collecting a few quirky cards from various stalls to give to La Cousina. She may have gotten a little carried away... well, it felt that way while we were there, but looking at the cards afterwards it didn't actually look that bad.

At one of the stalls I was flicking through the cards on offer and came across a couple of designs that looked vaguely familiar... so I turned the card over, looked on the back, and yep, the artwork was by Luka Va... who made the black and white Munny I bought from the first Espionage vinyl toy show.

I mentioned that to her and we had a lovely conversation about it... turns out that that little Munny did some travelling... she finished it while she was camping and then varnished it and sent it off while staying with friends in Sydney. I always like to hear those "behind the scenes" stories about artworks... makes it more interesting and more personal.

We also stopped off to see Mim at Four Seeds, because brownies!

The Red Door Bakery crew were noticeably absent this time around with their gorgeous gourmet sausage rolls and pies... but there was a nice patisserie, Abbot and Kinney, so we picked up something sweet and tasty.

There really wasn't very much that was ringing our proverbial bells beyond the cards, so we pretty much only did a couple of laps before we headed off.

After our Easter kite related excursion, we'd decided that we should head out to the beach and take our kites along with us (since Ma did have either of hers with us last time). Finding the appropriate bit of beach was somewhat problematic, only because the tide was further in than was really helpful, but eventually we settled on Glenelg North.

And that's where too much of a good thing really comes in, because while there was LOTS of wind... which is always good for kites... it was a little too much, and a little too gusty. Ma was having trouble with her kite, which just snaps open and is held open by it's own magic fabulousness... or, you know, wind and air pressure and stuff... but it kept collapsing in on itself. Weirdly, that didn't stop it from staying in the air.

I started out with my big white kite, but that seemed determined to head over the rocks and up towards the road, when it wasn't crashing to the beach or just misbehaving. Fortunately I'd taken the smaller flame sled kite but I think I had it inside out so it was flying sideways and doing loop the loops... exciting, but very crashy.

When I turned it the right way around it behaved really well. I did get the string and tails tangled at some point, which was totally my own fault, but was a little frustrating trying to get it sorted out with the wind whipping along.

Eventually we gave up, Ma had tried her little bird kite, but that has a high misbehaviour quotient and she couldn't get it to do what she wanted.

So we headed down to Glenelg, and headed into the spectacularly renovated Orange Spot Bakery... seriously, it went from about a 2 to about a 9... granted they also bought the shop next door and knocked some walls out, so the space is about three times as big, but it's very chic... especially for a bakery.

I got the chicken and bacon kransky... and what I didn't expect was that it would actually have a slice of bacon wrapped around the kransky. It was very tasty!

We wandered down to the beach to eat our goodies, which was incredibly windy, but that's really how I prefer my beach experiences... cold, stormy, windy and predominantly deserted.

Once we were finished we had a bit of a wander up Jetty Road, and then headed back here.

It doesn't sound like all that much, but by the time we made it back here it was already 3pm. So a fairly full day... with fresh air and everything.

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easter shopping saturday with unexpected kites

Can you guess what we did today?

Everything started out the same as usual... Technically I broke my record for getting downstairs just as Ma was arriving, but literally only by about two minutes.

The supermarket portion of the morning was fairly standard... completely coincidentally and not because of the public holiday, I discovered at the end of the week that I'd run out of a number of different things, or didn't have things in the cupboard that I thought I did... so we ended up with a fuller trolley than usual.

Which didn't help when we got the other new check-out boy who cannot pack a bag to save his young life. I think Ma possibly traumatised him though... since she doesn't tend to suffer bad bag packers particularly well.

When we got back here there was much unpacking and filling of cupboards.

Beyond that we didn't have any plans for the day but while Ma was looking at part of the paper she happened to notice that the Adelaide International Kite Festival was on again this weekend (not really all that surprising, since I think it's usually been on over the Easter weekend, at least for the last few years).

So I dug out my Angels Play kite and grabbed my camera and we headed off down to Semaphore.

The Kite Festival is often a crapshoot... some years there's plenty of wind and the sky is full of colour, other years the kites just don't seem to want to stay in the air. Unfortunately this was much more the former than the latter. And as you can see from the photos, it was fairly grey when we first got there, although the clouds did break up somewhat later.

From a spectator perspective it also works better when the wind is going from left to right along the beach. Otherwise you just tend to see the kites from the wrong perspective.

It was also a shame because there seemed to be a whole bunch of new kites this year.

I always find that the music they have blaring along the jetty is way too loud... but then my default opinion is that any public address system should be turned down by half and everyone would be better off. And then there's also the prattle of the announcements/announcer which never gets any better.

Because the wind wasn't particularly strong we seemed to spend as much time waiting for the kites to get up in the air as we did watching them while they were up.

The public side of the beach was actually doing pretty well, kite-wise... but then they're just trying to get small individual kites in the air rather than the nylon behemoths that the professionals were dealing with.

Eventually we decided to wander up Jetty Road, maybe get some lunch and see if the wind picked up at all.

I do have to say though that Semaphore's Jetty Road isn't really all that exciting or conducive to wandering, so essentially we only checked out one store and that was more because it was there than anything else.

We'd decided to grab some fish and chips (well, in my case a burger), but when we stopped off at the fish and chip shop it turned out that the wait for food was about 40 minutes... which was definitely more to do with the crowds than the relative quality of the food.

But we decided that forty minutes was way too long to wait, plus it didn't look like the wind was going improve that much, so we decided to head along the coast until we found somewhere else to eat.

We ended up down at Grange... more due to the fact it was the first place that I knew there was a fish and chip shop rather than anything else.

Although we didn't got to the same shop we've been to before... it used to be really good, but the few times we've been recently it's been kind of dodgy, fortunately there's another shop one block over, so we went there instead.

Turned out to be a decent idea. The chips were pretty good and although I keep swearing off burgers as a food idea, one of the couple of exceptions is a good chip shop burger... there's nothing fancy or pretentious about them, and are usually pretty damn tasty. And this one was no exception.

We drove around the corner and found a bench to sit on right by the beach, which was very nice.

Once we were done with lunch I grabbed the kite out of the car and spent the required week and a half putting it together (actually it wasn't that bad, but it's been a while since I did it and was convinced that it was busted) before we headed down onto the beach.

Unfortunately there still wasn't all that much wind around, and while I got my kite up in the air for a while, it wasn't long before it was taking all my effort to keep it off the sand, so at that point I called it quits and we headed back home again.

So definitely not how I was expecting to spend the day, but as Ma said on the way home, it was nice to get out in the fresh air... and it wasn't especially too hot or too cold... although it could have been windier.

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rainy easter saturday with shopping and kites

No prizes for guessing what we did today...

It all started out with the usual routine... tidying up, heading to the supermarket to wend our way between the Easter shoppers, then back here to unpack and whatnot.

Then, even though the forecast called for showers, we headed down to Semaphore for the 16th Adelaide International Kite Festival.

When we got there it didn't look especially promising... there were only a couple of kites up in the air and some of those appeared to be struggling a little.

So after we hung out for a little while to see if things would improve, we decided to go for a wander down Jetty Road, get something warm to drink, and come back to see if things had improved.

We ended up stopping at the Swedish Tarts Cafe... and I'm not going to lie, most of the decision was based on the fact that one of the waiters walked out in front of us as we went past, and he was fucking gorgeous. Turned out there was another cute (bearded) waiter too... and a shaven headed guy in the kitchen with fantastic arms (in a tanktop).

My kinda cafe really...

Sadly, the hot chocolate I had was a little bit lackluster... but at least the view was good.

By the time we wandered back down the jetty, the wind was starting to both pick up and shift around. And there were a bunch more kites in the air.

Unfortunately the crowd was somewhat problematic... in previous years the organisers of the festival have roped off underneath the jetty to prevent people from wandering onto the northern site of the beach where all the kites and flyers are located. If one of the big, rigid kites fell out of the sky or the flyer was distracted, those things could break someone's nose at the very least.

But people were just wandering all across the beach, parents were just letting their kids run wherever they wanted... once again it makes me wonder about the intelligence of some people.

We moved up and down the jetty, taking advantage of spaces without people (only to have people fill up those spaces around us) and watching as the flyers tried to get more kites airborne.

To be honest, for the most part it was the same dozen or so kites as previous years... the mermaid, the rainbow stingray, the frog, the soccer ball... and the guy doing tricks with one of the stunt kites and getting up close and personal with the people on the jetty (at one point he brought it down to balance on my outstretched hand... a little like the photo at the top of the post... which was cool).

We hung out for a while before wandering back up Jetty Road in search of some lunch. Unsurprisingly we ended up back at Swedish Tarts.

I was a little unsure of what to have... and ended up picking Pytt i Panna...

It sounded good on the board "bacon, sausage, potato, onion, beetroot and egg"... but it ended up being the type of thing I sometimes make when I don't have a lot of ingredients in the house to make something decent.

It was interesting and filling, but not something I'd get again.

And, to top it all off, the really pretty waiter had left.

Then we wandered back down to the jetty for a last look at the kites.

The "kite battle" was supposed to be coming up just after we wandered back, although it took a while before the announcer could get all of the stupid people off that side of the beach, and by the time they'd moved out of the way, the wind had picked up to such a degree that they decided it was too dangerous.

And that's about the point that the rain that was supposed to stay away, made an appearance.

Not for very long, just long enough to get everyone scurrying off the jetty, but at that point we called it a day and headed back to my place. And we just managed to make it back before it started to pour down.

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