Ballarat Begonia Festival 2016

After all this time I still have so many unpublished blog photos including more maternity pictures. I was debating whether to bother continuing to publish maternity photos but after viewing my blog statistics today I found only yesterday, someone managed to find my blog by Googling “I can’t find anything to wear when pregnant”. This also made me laugh as I had always thought (much to the amusement of my husband) that I was the only person who used whole sentences when doing a search. Most referrals from Google come from searches with only 2 key words (usually “pregnancy” and “fashion”).

Anyhow todays pictures are from the Ballarat Begonia Festival, which seemed like forever ago. I always get excited about going to the Begonia Festival because growing up we always entered the parade with our school and sat on a float. From memory our school won on a number of occasions. Whilst being on a float was fun it meant that we rarely got to watch the parade or most importantly collect the freebies that were thrown to the crowds by those in the parade. These days you would be lucky to get a dodgy flyer given to you – gone are the days when Mars confectionary and others businesses would throw lollies at screaming kids.

As a teenager I was a member of a Pathfinder club and would spend the long weekend camping and hiking, again missing out on all the action. However even now as an adult I usually find there are far too many things that fall onto this holiday weekend which limit my ability to attend. This year I managed to attend on the last afternoon.

Looking back at these colourful pictures is both refreshing and saddening as at the moment I am cooped up at home terribly sick and feel like I have not been outside in a long time. I have spent the last week in my pyjamas and right now cannot hear anything out of my left ear. This is the last in a couple of fairly crap weeks that I have had (I have a whole blogpost coming up on our Faulty Towers holiday to QLD a fortnight ago!!).

Anyhow I am going to spend the evening and sit here dreaming about being outside playing on the giant chess set with my sister or taking Roo for a stroll through the old fernery for some family portraits. Disappointingly the old fernery is being taken down to be replaced a new one. I am not sure I am a fan of the new design even though it is supposed to be a nod to the original fernery that once stood there. Hopefully I can be pleasantly surprised when I see it finished. It was only this summer that I stood in the gardens and a friend of mine visiting stated they could get a really great photo of the gardens if only the ugly glass house was not in it. I guess I am so used to seeing it I had never actually thought about whether it was aesthetically pleasing or not, yet when the fernery is being pulled down and rebuilt I am interested in how that is done!!

Stay warm and keep well. XX