a few days in Canberra

I’ve been absent without leave the last two days. You probably only noticed if your comments hadn’t been approved yet. We went down to Canberra to see the National Gallery of Australia’s Ballets Russes exhibition. It was wonderful! Of course, I couldn’t take any photos, so I’m sorry that there’s none to share with you. The catalogue was only $40 though (compared to the $70 for the Valentino catalogue!) so that became a business expense for me. 🙂

The exhibition included 130 costumes from various ballet productions of the Ballets Russes. Some were plain and simple, others were over the top with their elegance. The National Gallery has one of the largest collections of costumes from the Ballets Russes, and this was a wonderful opportunity to see many of them. Highly highly recommended if you’re going to be in Canberra any time before it ends in March.

We also explored the bookshop at the National Portrait Gallery, and I bought a wonderful book full of inspiration that I will review in due course.

So with the exhibition and the new books, I feel full of inspiration!

We decided to visit some places that we’d never been before, while in Canberra. We drove up Mt Ainslie after dinner on Wednesday night to have a look over the city. There were so many ladybugs, butterflies and birds up there. The air was filled with the songs of the birds, and the fluttering of colourful wings. I have never seen so many butterflies and ladybugs at one place before. Unfortunately some people seemed to think that squashing ladybugs was fun; why, I will never understand…

On Thursday we went to the Australian Sound and Film Archives which was very interesting, and we got to share some of the original sound and film recordings that we often quote to the girls, with them. Things like “Miranda! Miranda!” (from Picnic at Hanging Rock), “Hurry up…” (Blackboard from Mr Squiggle), “Well may we say ‘God save the Queen’ because nothing can save the Governor General” (Gough Whitlam, 11th November 1975, on being thrown out as Australian Prime Minister by the Governor General).

We saw bits of “The Story of the Kelly Gang” which is possibly the world’s oldest feature film, of which only about 15 minutes of film still exists, pretty much all found by accident! We saw a bit of a documentary about the restoration of a portion of it that was accidentally found in the BBC archives some years back. It was very interesting.

After exhausting our options for entertainment there, we moved on to the National Museum of Australia, a decidedly underwhelming experience. I was asked by a lady if I’d ever worked at Canberra Hospital, as I apparently have a double. “No, sorry.” I explained that I do have an identical twin (cruelly getting her hopes up) but that she’d never worked there either (cruelly dashing them). Very odd, however this is the same lady who had walked straight past the ladies toilets not recognising that they were the ones for her. I’d say her powers of recognition were a little underdeveloped…

We have been to the museum before, and for such a large and architecturally interesting building, they just don’t seem to have much displayed in it. I am unsure what the focus of the museum is. Is it natural history? History of the people? Decorative arts? I wonder if the museum has a bit of an identity crisis? Maybe if they figured out what their focus is and redeveloped the museum according to that, it might seem a little more interesting and cohesive. But maybe I’m being harsh. Maybe visitors to Australia find it interesting?

We came home via Bungendore, to see an amazing woodworking showcase there. It was quite incredible. There was an astonishing table worth $50000 (count the noughts!) which absolutely glowed. The grain in the wood was incredible, and it was oh so beautiful. Can’t really see it in our house though. It would end up encrusted with my youngest daughter’s Weetbix and smears of glittery stuff from her glitter gel pens. Not a great way to show respect for a $50000 table. I think we’ll let someone else purchase it. (So magnanimous of us…)

Had a great couple of days.