On Show

When I was a little girl the high points of the year were Christmas, my birthday and the Royal Show. Luckily for me these anticipated events were spaced out quite nicely over the year, with never more than four months wait before the fun started again.

However the Royal Show was my absolute favourite. For some reason my birthday, my special day, grew a bit uncomfortable for me. As a child I wasn't happy in the limelight and hated that the day never really met my unrealistic expectations. I didn't really like everyone looking at me, and I was confronted with presents telling of how people didn't know me very well.

Christmas was of course fantastic, it had its own special build up, starting with a wish and a stir of Mum's Christmas pudding. The shop displays would cheer on the festivities, then the pageant would mark the arrival of Santa in the magic cave. And like the lucky children we were, there would be lots of presents, lots of family and lots of food on the day.

However the expectation or journey of Christmas, like opening the advent calendar one window at a time was often more enjoyable to my child self than the day itself. People didn't always behave like you would expect at Christmas, maybe it was the stress of it all, or the alcohol consumed, but that one day of indulgence, like the rise and fall of a roller coaster was fun, but strangely nauseating.

The Royal Show on the other hand always met my expectations. My mum would have a carefully laid out plan that lead us through the show grounds like search and rescue personnel, never missing an attraction. But the absolute best thing about the show was hearing the word "Yes". My Mum used to have some favourite sayings to ease back the pain of saying "No" to me. Her favourite was, "Not today Josephine", which I hated. To abate my thirst or hunger while out, I would hear, "When you get home" and when it came to presents, to ease my anxiety to know what they contained she would always say, "All secrets will be revealed." But at the show there were no secrets, there were plenty of pit stops at the CWA cafe and Mum used to say "Yes" all day long.

So with the Royal Show in town all I wanted to do was say, "Yes" to B and Little Miss, just like my Mum. Yes to the rides, yes to the show bags, yes to hot donuts and yes to looking at whatever they wanted to see. In lieu of big birthday parties this year the show was the carrot, and we did eat.

Little Miss watched her idol fairies perform


B fell slid from a titanic height, just for fun.

We saw and touched pigs, horses, rabbits, dogs and TV watching cows.

Ate hot donuts


Went on the Ferris wheel

Drove a fire engine


Gave out free hugs

And smiled and laughed a lot.

Until it was finally time to go home. 

I asked Little Miss what she thought of the Show and she said, "It was so awesome, I just wanted to shout hooray!"

I tried to ask B the same question but he was distracted by his Army show bag. To our horror it contained not one but four toy guns. He asked me, "Which one of these guns is more powerful?"

I said, "I don't know about guns, except that they kill people."

To which B replied, "How come you told me about snail guns then."

After I stopped laughing I managed to say, "I think you might mean slug guns."

The Royal Adelaide show is on the second week of September every year at the Wayville show grounds on Goodwood Road.