And now for another year

Now that the silly season is over, things are getting back to normal here. Canberra is fairly quiet at this time of the year as many people take time off to get out of town for school holidays, travelling interstate or just down to the coast. Actually, I love January because of the peace and quiet after the rush leading up to Christmas and New Year which is followed by a huge influx of car enthusiasts (and a few hoons) for Summernats which is held at Exhibition Park in Canberra (EPIC) for about four days just after New Year. EPIC is only about 2-3 kms from my place and you can hear the fireworks every night at around 10-ish.

During the holidays I played tour guide for an interstate relative and visited Old Parliament House. It was amazing - if I'd known it was so good I would have gone before. The whole place is opened up and you can go places that were a real no-go zone before they moved to the new Parliament House. We sat on the front bench in the House of Representatives, went into the Prime Ministers office (akin to the Oval Room in US, but this one was square), and dropped in to the Cabinet Room. All very interesting. I had a bit of trouble with my new camera and some of the photos were a little dark as I couldn't figure out the flash settings. I'll post a few of the reasonable ones here but will definately have to go back to OPH sometime in the future.

Of course you'll recognise this as the front door.

When I walked through the door of the Cabinet Room, these two old codgers gave me a bit of a shock - they looked so real. I wonder if you know who they are ?

And here's the rest of the Cabinet Room.

I do have one other photo I'd like to add but I think I'd better get permission from the 'subject' before doing so.