One eyed snakes and showbags

Those of you that are not living under a rock somewhere will be familiar with the dread that fills you when the local carnival/show rolls into town. The big one here is called "The Royal Canberra Show" and every parent within a 200km radius of Canberra is filled with dread when the ads start appearing on TV. You know when it starts because the relative calm of your Saturday morning is suddenly shattered by small children rushing in to interrupt your first cup of coffee to breathlessly announce in REALLY LOUD VOICES that the miracle of consumerism is about to arrive - SHOW BAGS!!!!!!!!!! Yes, those wonderful plastic bags filled with the crap the makers of "Dora the Explorer", "My Little Pony" and the batman franchise have not been able to shift for the last 5 Christmases have finally been packed into plastic carry bags that can then be flogged for vastly inflated prices at "The Show"!!!! Yaya!!!!!!! This year my sister was brave enough to volunteer to take our eldest daughter all by herself so Grace could get a break from all of the testosterone currently swarming through our house (my sister in law is living with us with her two boys, but that's a whole other post). Grace toddled off with my sister (who, I should point out, DOES NOT have children) to enjoy the delights of the show. The highlight of the night was probably when Grace purchased her "Snakes alive" showbag (lollies) and announced in a nice loud voice "Auntie Kate, guess what? There's a one eyed snake in my show bag!!!!". Kate nearly spat out the coffee she was drinking and (once she established that it was a toy snake missing an eye and not that Grace had inadvertently bought the 18+ "Norks ahoy" showbag) commented that Grace might want to keep that fact to herself, as it might cause a riot in the showbag pavilion if people thought one eyed snakes were being given away in showbags. You might think this was the best quote from the whole weekend, but I have to say my husband manage to top it when we took the boys along on the Sunday. Cameron got some kind of toy on a leash, which he proceeded to drag around the show, tripping up people for a good two hours. Eventually Tim just snapped after Cam tripped over it for the 50th time and shouted "Cameron, for god's sake, get that thing out from between your legs and put it over your shoulder!!!!!". Had to lean against nearby camel ride ticket sales booth whilst I laughed my arse off. I love the show.