*dreamy sigh*
The cubs had a day off school today so we went to the Melbourne Aquarium.
You know how relaxing it is watching a tank of fish, well, multiply that by lots (there are some ginormous tanks here :). True, the effect was diminished a little by being in the company of two full-on, full volume 7 year olds but even so I'm considerably less frazzled after this outing than I usually am.
You know, I had no idea some of those fish I see in the documentaries were so big! I always assumed the leafy sea-dragons where little, but they're twice the length of my palm, and so graceful...
There's a simulated mangrove pond at the aquarium and in it is a selection of small sharks (Port Jacksons, Pygmys amongst others) and some juvenile sting rays. The top of the pond is waist height on me so you could look at the surface as well as seeing the critters through the perspex sides. Seeing the itsy bitsy dorsal fins breaking the water was so cute!
Heh, as well as being soothed by all the fishies swimming around, I was also permanently peckish - all these loverly, juicy meals swimming just inches from my nose... mmmm...
The aquarium has several big sharks as well, in it's main tank. At the question/information session, a little girl asked how they kept the sharks from eating the other fish. The short answer was 'we can't', but the keeper went on to say the sharks are kept well fed so they're not quite so tempted to decimate the fish population.
'Well fed'? I'll say! You think of sharks as being lean and mean, but this lot were more like barrels with teeth! *g*
The souvenir shop deserves a mention because it had snow domes! and loads of other stuff to satisfy my fish fetish. We're going to join the 'friends of the aquarium' asap, not only so we can get in free but get the 20% discount in the shop. heh heh heh.
(I'm reminded at this point of a scene from one of the Simpson's episodes where 2 of the mafia guys are talking about Troy McClure's comeback.
1st guy: I thought you said McClure was dead?
2nd guy: No, what I said was 'he sleeps with the fishes'.
1st guy: I don't want to hear any more!!

Ok, fair enough, I like fish, but not quite that way... Do merpeople count as fish?)

The cubs badgered me into taking them to the cafe and I was glad they did, not only was it reasonably priced (compared to the Museum's cafe) but when someone there suggested we try a new flavoured milk (caramel - yum!) and because of a cash shortage (how unusual) I had to ask the cubs to choose between something to eat or something to drink, we were given the drinks for free! And when I ordered a bowl of chips and a spare plate (so they could share) we got 2 bowls of chips for the price of 1!
Impressed? Hell, yes...

We also had a ride on the free ferry that travels the Yarra river between the Aquarium and Federation Square. The cubs enjoyed that almost as much as I did, I think.
It was good going in to the city on a weekday, the public transport is so much better - this time we only had to wait 5 minutes instead of an hour for a bus home.

Our backyard is currently a wasteland. The council is doing some work on the pipes that run along our (and everyone else in the streets) back fence.
The good thing is that they've basically cleared a path 10' wide, removing all the weeds and old prunings and concrete crap that'd been there since before we moved in, the bad news is we've lost some of our privacy - all of the plants along the back fence screened us from the house over the way - (especially miffed about the orange tree and bamboo) and KittenKong is traumatised cos of all the big machines and strange men tearing up her backyard...