Up up and away

Hot air balloons over Canberra in the early morning light.

Orange

At the entrance to the National Portrait Gallery is this huge bright orange blob. It's a sculpture called Geo Face Distributor, made in 2009 by James Angus. Constructed of cast aluminium with enamel paint, it was commissioned to celebrate the launch of the new National Portrait Gallery.

The description of the sculpture says: "Australian artist James Angus has long been interested in how the visual forms of physics, biology and mathematics inform our perceptions of time, space, scale, mass and movement. In viewing this sculpture we become aware of our innate capacity to recognise and respond to the faces of others, and of our tendency to see figurative shapes in the abstract forms of nature."

Figurative shapes perhaps, but I can't see faces in this. I'm not convinced it's the best 'face' for a portrait gallery - after all, portraits are representations of specific people - but that's not to say I don't like it, and I've seen how people respond to it: children especially can't resist touching it and checking it from all angles.

Happy coffee

Coffee at the National Portrait Gallery cafe :)

Perfect

I don't normally take photos in toilets, but I couldn't miss this one. Especially as it's in the girls' change rooms in a high school :)

The Funnel

Stormwater drain under Vergurgghen St, Melba (on the corner of Copland Drive). The buildings in the background are the college (Year 11-12) campus of Melba-Copland Secondary School.

Water water everywhere ...

The same creek from Friday, but this time from the bottom end of Copland Drive, Melba (the suburb of Evatt is on the other side of the road behind me). We've had even more rain, and it's bigger and moving faster. These trees are normally all on dry ground.

Lego and hot chocolate - perfect!

The kids and I went for a long walk down the hill yesterday morning, and ended up in Florey, at the Perfect Bean cafe. Geoff currently has a display of his Lego Star Wars models in the cafe, which was great for keeping the kids interested while breakfast was on the way.

The hot chocolate (and the rest of the breakfast!) met with general approval, and was excellent fortification before the trek back UP the hill (just me - the short people cadged a lift with the husband :) ).

I'm on a 'get healthy' program, and the poached eggs and baked beans fit into my nutrition plan perfectly. And the espresso was just what I needed. If you need to go gluten-free, you can eat here without worrying about cross-contamination - Kelly (one of the owners) is coeliac, so she's very aware of what's needed in that respect.

The cafe is open Tuesday to Friday 8am-4.30pm, Saturday 9am-2.30pm, and Sunday 9am-2pm.

And they're off!

Despite the rain, BMX racing was on this morning at the track at the bottom of Melba. My daughter was impressed by the number of girls racing :)

It's a bit damp here

We've had more rain in the past few days than Canberra usually sees in the whole month of March. And there's more to come. This photo was taken near the intersection of Kingsford Smith Drive and Ginninderra Drive this afternoon - still raining, and the normally tiny creek swollen to many times its usual width. Fortunately much of Canberra is planned with large low-lying green strips to channel the water. Other places aren't so lucky - there have been evacuations in Cooma and Goulburn to escape rising floodwaters.

Books and more books

Winchbooks in Bungendore is a little slice of heaven on earth for book lovers. Packed full of secondhand volumes from all genres, you could easily lose yourself in here for hours.