4 year olds don’t really appreciate fine art

It was the last day of the school holidays today, so time for one last hurrah before settling back into the school routine for another 10 weeks.

A girlfriend and her 2 daughters joined the boys and I for few hours of sport, dining and fine art. Perhaps I over exaggerate just a wee bit?

Our sport entailed targeting 10 white bottle-like objects with a spherical weight, otherwise known as 10 pin bowling. The 4 year olds, used the ramp and managed some great scoring shots. H bowled quite well, but chucked a wobbly at getting “only 98” he wanted to get 100 or better, but it was not to be. He couldn’t even be placated by the fact that 98 is the highest score he’s ever bowled. D was disappointed with her score, but I reminded her that I had the lowest score for the day – what a coming back to earth after my Easter effort! J, the girls’ mum bowled well.

By the time the game was finished and we’d re-shod and returning our bowling shoes, it was time for lunch. It wasn’t the fine dining experience alluded to earlier, but McD’s. The kids had a “Happy Meal” each which included a collectable mini fluffy puppy – they thought it was great! We mums had a “deli choice” and a coffee. My opinion of McD’s has been reinforced. I’ve never had such slow fast food service in all my life. By the time we had our “meals” in hand, there were at least a dozen people queued up waiting to order. The kids worked off a bit of energy in the playground before we toddled off back to the car and ventured into the city centre.

After a pleasant although glary stroll along the boulevard known as North Terrace, we arrived at the Art Gallery of South Australia. As we had a stroller, we took the rear entrance and jumped on the lift, only to find ourselves in a restricted part of the gallery -- spooks at work? Finally back on track we wandered through the Contemporary, Australian and European sections. One interesting part of the exhibition was a case full of creatures constructed from clear white beads (wired I presume) and pieces of white Tupperware. There were indeed some interesting creatures; bats, frill-necked lizards, chicken legs, jelly fish, and of course a representation of “jug ears”.

J was his usual fidgety self, having to try and touch everything and chucking wobblies at the dro of a hat (that went on and on and on) when he couldn’t. It was hard for J to understand that it was all just look and NOT touch. This made it difficult to soak up the works of art as one needs more than 2 pairs of eyes.

After an hour or so, we re-emerged into the glary, but pleasantly warming afternoon sun, a far cry from the dreary damp day that had been predicted.

We mums decided that yes, we were glad we’d done it, but it would be quite a while before we attempted that sort of thing again, with youngsters in tow. H did thank us for taking him to the art gallery and said that he enjoyed it – he knows what side his bread is buttered on, doesn’t he!