Tan Family Blog

Boardgaming is one of my guilty pleasures – never mind what the others are – and I enjoyed a decadent weekend in Canberra for the Australian Games Expo.

For the uninitiated, a boardgaming convention is an opportunity for publishers and retailers to showcase designer boardgames, especially new releases. Such conventions often includes elements of miniatures gaming, role-playing, computer games and science fiction culture. This was my second consecutive year of attendance at AGE. The first time was a more memorable experience, but this year was equally enjoyable; I played fewer games and spent more time relaxing and talking with fellow gamers. I was pleased to have spent far less money buying games this year, exercising much greater restraint than I thought I was capable of.

I took advantage of the public holiday on Tuesday by taking annual leave on Monday to create a four-day weekend, allowing me to spend two days in Brisbane immediately after my two days in Canberra. Of course, taking annual leave to create a long weekend is quite different from taking sick leave to do so, but I was interested to read that the latter practice had been branded "un-Australian". Now, there is not much that I loathe more than that particular word, which is nothing more than a meaningless label used by the uncreative to malign something without making any attempt at explanation. This latest example of its use is especially appalling: while "taking a sickie" may be undesirable (if you're an employer), there can be no doubt that it is quintessentially Australian.

Katharina, our nanny, begins work today and it will be a significant change to the family routine. Oscar and Adeline spent a couple of hours with her on Monday afternoon and were very comfortable with her right away.

Those living in Brisbane are well aware that it has been a scorching summer so far. Unfortunately, our plans to have new air-conditioning installed two months ago foundered on an inordinate delay by Energex in upgrading the power supply to our street. Finally, it appears that Energex completed their work last week, thus clearing the way for installation of a new power supply to our home. We are quietly optimistic that the project will be completed within the next 2 weeks.

Recently, I have been trying to pique the children's interest in reading by drawing attention to some of the shorter words that appear on signs, such as "push", "pull" and "open". I had not realised before yesterday, how commonly the word "no" appears in signage, as in "no smoking", "no standing" and "no entry". I should not have been surprised, given that signage is largely prohibitive. For the last two days, Oscar and Adeline have been pointing out all the "no"s they can find.

The quote of the week comes from Oscar during yesterday's visit to the zoo: "Can we pat the bear?"