This week saw me working out of a Bondi café. Not slinging $4.30 skinny soy lattes to hipster customers, but important plotting and planning. Working from a café is not as easy as it sounds. There’s the trouble of trying to find the perfect spot. Inside? Too dark, Bob Marley remix too loud. Outside? Too sunny, too windy.  And then there’s the fine art of negotiating room on the tiny table for notebook, devices, coffee, muffin, sugar container. And yes, there’s the wobbly table. And let’s not forget about the distraction of all those hipster beards – Gatsby haircut with a Ned Kelly face. I won’t go on.

Spider Boy and I met Spider Boy’s dad at Circular Quay and we all went to the Museum of Contemporary Art.

SB’s dad had asked SB what he wanted to do today. “Go to the Museum of Contemporay Art” SB replied, “…because you know, it’s really stylish and there’s pictures there that are, you know, really stylish and cool,” he explained. SB had been to the MCA before and has never forgotten the life-size Spider Man he saw there.

Once inside, we were all pleased to see that Spider Man is a permanent exhibit. Not really sure about the weird gargoyle thing.

We came across an amazing video exhibition by Japanese artist Ayako Tabata, who goes by the name Tabaimo. The exhibition, Tabaimo: Mekurumeku  combines animated hand-drawn imagery with sound, and by observing it we felt we were stepping into another world. I knew nothing about the artist or her work beforehand.

Since Spider Boy is only 6, we took him through this exhibition fairly quickly. I would say for any child younger than 5 or 6, the all-encompassing images and sounds may be a little overwhelming. Spider Boy seemed to enjoy it from a purely sensory point of view, and the darker subtexts definitely went over his head (and mine as well really, until I read about them afterwards in an article in Time Out magazine.)

SB may not have read the dark subtext, but he still got to engage with his shadow side. There was a room with a dark digital stormy sea and beach projected onto three walls, complete with seagulls flapping and running along the “sand”.

 

After the museum and the requisite visit to the gift shop (the real reason SB likes museums and galleries), we went to a little piece of Paris in the Rocks area of Sydney. La Renaissance Patisserie has delightful French pastries, baguettes, gourmet pies and sausage rolls. At lunchtime the line was actually out the door by a couple of people but moved quickly as four staff were behind the counter working very hard. We got a table in the back courtyard and enjoyed watching the rainbow lorikeets in the frangiapani tree. A window into the kitchen allowed Spider Boy to spot a croquembouche being assembled. “Is that a croquembouche!?” he asked excitedly, “That’s like Masterchef! Is that Brent?” No, it wasn’t the 2014 Masterchef winner, but still exciting for SB and me. SB’s Dad, not so much.

Spider Boy went to the hotel his dad was staying in and was transfixed by the view from the 29th floor. He requested a photo of himself “web-slinging”.

During a park outing the next day, we spotted this little bird’s nest.

And in other news,  I got carried away with the goodness of blueberries in several different forms.

What treats have you enjoyed this week?

The Tabaimo: Mekurumeku exhibition is on at the MCA until September 7. Entry is free.

La Renaissance Patisserie and Café is at 47 Argyle Street, The Rocks Sydney