Everybody Say Cheese!

Yesterday was the West End State School Fiesta. We set up a photobooth with some props and, as you can see, people really got into it!

Swimming Carnival!

It's nearing the end of the first school term of the year. Get the bunting out - it must be time for a swimming carnival! Some of these kids are scarily good.

Snag A Vote!

It's State Election time today in Queensland and the competition is fierce between polling stations as far as who is offering the best food. A friend of mine said that he was going to travel around South Brisbane today doing a survey to see which polling station offered the best food! My daughter's school houses our local polling station and capitalised on the opportunity for a fundraiser so we set up some BBQs and a home made cake stall. We even put some of the kids to work, selling breakfast rolls to the queue of voters while they were standing in line... It's great having a captive audience!

On the BBQ menu today...

Sausage in bread: $2
Bacon and egg roll: $5
Rocket, haloumi and roasted tomato roll: $5

Getting off to a flying start

Queensland has some of the best swimmers in the world and no wonder - the weather is perfect for it! From the time most kids can crawl and often before, they are chucked into a pool and taught how to save themselves... and it goes from there.

Once a week on these warm summer evenings we all hang out, cook a BBQ and watch our offspring spring off into the school pool and swim like little fishies. From aged 6 to aged 12, in races of 25m or 50m: back stroke, breast stroke, freestyle and butterfly...  And nearly all of them swim better and faster than I could now.

Back To School Contact Paper Debacle

Tomorrow marks the end of the long school summer holiday and the start of the new school year in Queensland. Every year we go through the tedious ritual of wrapping all of the new writing books (this year for us it's 19 books!) in sticky plastic contact paper to reinforce them. The plastic is very unforgiving. If you stick it on wonky, that's the way it's going to stay forever... and if you get a huge bubble in it but have already stuck the edges down it's almost impossible to un-peel it and do it again. You spend ages trying to smooth out the stupid wrinkles and suddenly, getting a book with no wrinkles becomes a very important thing and if you've got wrinkles all over the place... well you feel like a bit of a failure. And that's even before the first bell goes.

Why don't they just produce the books with reinforced covers in the first place?? I reckon there are some perverted people out there that actually ENJOY it.

July Theme Day: The Colour Green

 

Members of the school's green house roused the troops before doing battle with the reds, yellows and blues at sports day earlier on this month. I think it got down to about 11 degrees celcius which is bloody freezing for people in Brisbane so don't laugh. I should have got a shot of the parents. We all had scarves and hats on and were warming our hands on our coffees.

It's Green Theme Day all over the City Daily Photo world... see how others interpreted the theme:

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Photo Booth at West End Fiesta

It was the West End State School fiesta yesterday and I was one half of the photo booth photographers.
Kids grabbed their friends or family, chose from the dressing up table and struck some funky poses. It was loads of fun!

Doorways Of Brisbane

All Hallows School (est. 1861), Ann St., CBD

Raining On The First Day of The School Holidays

Get the popcorn on standby, I feel a movie coming on.

I'll Huff and I'll Puff

Despite the blowy title and the enormous now category 5 cyclone approaching the north of the state, today's huffing and puffing is not weather related. This is "Huff 'n'Puff" which is kids of a certain age running or walking around the school oval 5 times before the school day begins. Most of them do about a lap (or less) running and then slow down to a gentle stroll and a chat to their mates, bursting into a jog every now and then. It might not look it but the conditions aren't that great. I was sweating just standing around watching.

Brisbane's Future Stars

Our local school put on a great singing and instrumental concert the other night. The programme included "Whistle While You Work" sung by the junior choir (age 5-8), The Turtles' "Happy Together" sung by the senior choir (age 9-12) and a smoking rendition of Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" by the senior band (also age 9-12). Rock On!

Let Them Eat Cack!

Spotted at the children's cake competition at the West End State School Fiesta yesterday.

Traffic Stopping Art (Number 41)

Today's painted traffic signal box comes to you from Water Street. It's close to and themed for St. Joseph's College which is a Catholic boys' school in Spring Hill. It's painted by Paul Robertson who also painted the one outside Brisbane Girls Grammar (seen here).

Traffic Stopping Art (number 31)

I love this zany one. It's the Brisbane Girls' Grammar School traffic signal box at the pedestrian crossing on Gregory Terrace...by Paul Robertson.

For others in the series, click on the TSBs label below.

Hmmm... I wonder what's for dinner?

Cricket. It's enough to drive you to distraction.

Somerville House

Here's the Vulture Street entrance to Somerville House private girls' school.
Not too shabby.

A Week In Hands (Monday)

There are a lot of hands around Brisbane...
Stenciled hands on walls go back to the earliest Australian cave paintings. The main function of them was to record people's presence and association with a site. They are used a lot today too.

These ones are on the wall of West End primary school.