Kelly and I spent a magnificent spring afternoon strolling around the flowers of Floriade.

Floriade is the annual flower festival that has been held in Canberra since 1988. It is now marketed as the largest flower festival in the southern hemisphere attracting over 300,000 visitors to the bush capital.

I prefer my flowers wild and unrepentant, and I find Floriade’s cultivated geometrics of tulips and pansies and azaleas and daisies to be a little too manufactured. Plenty would disagree.

Still, the warm afternoon kindled a good vibe thickened with sweet spring smells. There was music and art installations. There was a giant ferris wheel. We took our time and ambled amongst it all.