26 August 2021

Ten things to do at home this week (27 August - 3 September)

| James Coleman
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Children home-schooling

Children home-schooling during the COVID-19 lockdown. Photo: Jessica Lewis.

The elephant in the room this week has left many of us cooped up at home, events and social gatherings cancelled for the foreseeable future.

However, it isn’t the first time for this elephant, which means there isn’t much you can’t do remotely nowadays. For instance, we in the ACT are able to participate in the Far South Film Festival this year. There’ll be two movie trivia games via Zoom. And the gyms might be closed, but live training classes have come online.

You could also use the time to learn important new things you would never have known otherwise, like how to speak fluent Italian or how to make beer with yeast from space.

So there are still things to look forward to this weekend, Canberra!

All weekend

man pouring wine

Farrah’s Liquor Collective has all the ingredients you’ll need to craft your own cocktail. Photo: Michelle Kroll.

Make your own cocktails

Instead of pouring yourself a glass of wine and sitting down to watch TV, a couple of Canberra businesses are encouraging people to bring happy hour home by hosting a virtual cocktail party.

Matt Farrah, owner of Farrah’s Liquor Collective in Fyshwick, says now is a great time to learn how to make your own cocktails and provides all the ingredients you need to do it, available for ordering online.

Tent

Practice folding your tent up and down so you can look like a pro next time you’re at a public campsite. Photo: Enya Maxwell.

If you can’t get away, go camping in your garden

Travelling to a campsite might be off the cards, but nobody said anything about not setting up a tent in the backyard, complete with a campfire and the smell of frying bacon.

Kids will love the experience, and for those who don’t, it gives parents somewhere to go for a quiet break. Win, win!

Friday

Movie Trivia

Put your knowledge of cinema to the test. Image: Sanguineti Media.

Dan’s Movie Trivia Zoom Lockdown Extravaganza

When: 7:00 to 9:40 pm, Friday 27 August
Where: Online via Zoom.
Cost: $10 per device; buy tickets online.

As a way of keeping everyone sane during lockdown, Dan Sanguineti, a Canberra film-maker from from Sanguineti Media, will be hosting a movie trivia night via Zoom.

There will be 10 categories, with prizes for each. Play solo or as a household, or have a virtual team and use a separate private messaging to collaborate. Dressing up for the camera will instantly give you a bonus point …

Saturday

Marvel trivia

Start by naming the characters left to right. Photo: Trivia Master Australia.

Marvel Trivia

When: 3:00 to 5:00 pm, Saturday, 28 August
Where: Online via Zoom.
Cost: $12.64; book tickets on Eventbrite

Prove you’re the most marvellous Marvel fan of all time when Trivia Master Australia holds an online Marvel Trivia competition this Saturday afternoon, hosted by Aussie actor and Logie nominee Jason Montgomery. Rundown and rules begin promptly at 3:00 pm, and fancy dress is encouraged. One ticket counts for an entire household and teams can consist of one or multiple households.

All week

Two people on a mountainside

The major prize for the event will see the winner score $1,000. Photo: Raymond Toms.

Far South Film Festival

When: varies.
Where: Online via the Far South Film Festival website.
Cost: $30 to $75.

Each year, the Far South Film Festival invites filmmakers from regional and remote areas of Australia to submit short films under 40 minutes in length that reflect the people, environment and issues that matter to them.

The films, Q&A sessions and awards have moved online this year due to the lockdown restrictions in regional NSW. But this just means that those of us in the ACT can also enjoy watching unique, beautiful, scary and moving stories from budding rural filmmakers.

Club Lime Belconnen

Club Lime is hosting online sessions to keep members fit through the lockdown. Photo: Club Lime Belconnen.

Work out

With gyms falling quiet across the ACT and regional NSW, Club Lime, Hiit Republic and GroundUp are encouraging customers to turn their living room into a gym with online sessions on Instagram.

As well as posting how-to videos, these sessions are hosted live on their social channels every week. See their respective Instagram accounts to find out how to access these.

Explorers checklist

Turn their one hour of outdoor exercise into a fun hunting experience for your kids. Photo: Eco Explorers.

Nature scavenger hunt

It might just be a walk around the block for an hour, but have you ever paused to look at things during your daily exercise?

Eco Explorers has come up with a beautifully illustrated, Australian-themed nature scavenger hunt that’s perfect for parents to share time with their child in nature, for children to do alone, or for teachers to use as a resource. You can download it on the Eco Explorers website.

Language cards

Learn a new language from home with classes ranging from 30 minutes to 1 hour. Photo: Dominic Giannini.

Learn Italian

When: Varies
Where: Online via Zoom, Skype, or WhatsApp.
Cost: $30 to $60; book online.

Walk & Talk with Maria started in Canberra during the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020.

Fluent in Italian, English and Spanish, a little French and currently studying Japanese, Maria has experienced how, at times, studying a language can be boring or repetitive. This is why she developed a new concept of working out while stimulating your brain by learning a new language … in this case, Italian.

All classes are currently hosted online. A link to the class will be sent to your email once the booking is made.

Screen shot of new Trove home page

Trove is a single entry point to a treasure trove of national cultural artefacts, curiosities and stories from Australia’s recent and distant past. Image: NLA.

Discover something new on Trove

Trove is the National Library of Australia’s tool for exploring amazing collections from libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives around the country.

Get a snapshot of Australia’s past with access to digital copies of newspapers, Government Gazettes, maps, magazines, newsletters, books, pictures, photographs, archived websites, music and interviews. There are even personal letters and diaries penned by our famous forebears.

Trove is free and available online all day, every day.

Wednesday

James Gilbert and Richard Watkins

SuperSky Engineering co-founder James Gilbert (left) with BentSpoke co-founder Richard Watkins launch the balloon on its mission. Photo: BentSpoke.

Talking space beer

When: 6:00 pm, Wednesday 25 August
Where: Online – BentSpoke’s Facebook and Instagram accounts
Cost: Free; visit Facebook for more information.

BentSpoke’s founders and head brewers will be talking with SuperSky Engineering CTO and ANU astrophysicist Dr James Gilbert and brewing microbiologist Dan Rayner about ‘Astro Beer’, and how they launched a high-altitude balloon into space, captured yeast, safely brought it back to earth and brewed it.

Jump on Facebook to join the live discussion.

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Beer. A subject very prone to BBBrains, and as here an ongoing campaign to get us to buy expensive lagers.

Australia has more than a few established real ales.

LBNL all beers, taste better in a glass. Because smell is a vital part of taste for any food or drink.

I’ll keep on working my way through the books in my study library, Both sides of which have 6 shelves plus. And, some of which I haven’t read yet. Nor read twice

Highly recommend? “Dust, Donkeys and Delusion’ and ‘Bully Beef and Balderdash’ by Graham Wilson. I haven’t finished that later volume yet.

Beersheba was NOT a great cavalry charge, nor was it the last. They weren’t cavalry, anyway.
And in 1941 an Italian Cavalry unit charged in Russia!

Us WOs are the gear, see! 😉 and 🙂

Rediscovering Bill Bryson, who dind’t bother to explore Canberra’s/ACT’s actual size, but whose writing is infomative, and not dry.

Good books do get read more than once.

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