Two parties in four days...
Canada Day and American Independence Day, oh my!
Canada Day was celebrated in the traditional manner for my friends and family - a party at the house of my ex-Pom friends on the nearest Sunday (yeah, I know. Look, they spent 10 years in Canada before moving to Australia when the kids were littlies). It's an annual tradition. We had good food, some nice glasses of bubbly, a strawberries-and-cream Maple Leaf Flag cake (This year it was a red-jelly trifle underneath), and the Australian, Canadian and Welsh national anthems played. Yes, all three. And some years things tend to progress onto national sport songs, but not this year as everyone was being very polite to Finbarr because of England's totally unexpected (snort) loss in the penalty shoot-outs earlier that morning. It was his party, after all...
And today's Dad's got the monthly musical society meeting at our place, so Mum made cake. Because of the date, she decided to make it American Icebox Cake, and while we were at it, the nice white cream has been decorated with jelly-crystal red stripes and blue sugar stars. I kid you not. Photographic proof is coming (blue stars on white cream because the reverse is icky, to say the best).
So I just HAD to download copies of Waltzing Matilda and I Still Call Australia Home down onto my computer, to help keep me feeling mildly patriotic. The rest of my boost of patriotism is coming straight from the Tour de France, as it is sheer impossibility to be rev up really strong patriotism in Australia without involving sport in some way. If you don't believe me, do a little research into how Australian public holidays are celebrated. Or even just look at the classic example - Melbourne have a public holiday for a three and a half minute horse race. And yes, a good percentage of the population outside of Melbourne would like the race time moved by half an hour, so school kids and the parents who pick them up could watch it.
*utterly refuses to say anything about Kiwis and Phar Lap, except to reply: Makybe Diva is OURS, NYAH!*
Canada Day was celebrated in the traditional manner for my friends and family - a party at the house of my ex-Pom friends on the nearest Sunday (yeah, I know. Look, they spent 10 years in Canada before moving to Australia when the kids were littlies). It's an annual tradition. We had good food, some nice glasses of bubbly, a strawberries-and-cream Maple Leaf Flag cake (This year it was a red-jelly trifle underneath), and the Australian, Canadian and Welsh national anthems played. Yes, all three. And some years things tend to progress onto national sport songs, but not this year as everyone was being very polite to Finbarr because of England's totally unexpected (snort) loss in the penalty shoot-outs earlier that morning. It was his party, after all...
And today's Dad's got the monthly musical society meeting at our place, so Mum made cake. Because of the date, she decided to make it American Icebox Cake, and while we were at it, the nice white cream has been decorated with jelly-crystal red stripes and blue sugar stars. I kid you not. Photographic proof is coming (blue stars on white cream because the reverse is icky, to say the best).
So I just HAD to download copies of Waltzing Matilda and I Still Call Australia Home down onto my computer, to help keep me feeling mildly patriotic. The rest of my boost of patriotism is coming straight from the Tour de France, as it is sheer impossibility to be rev up really strong patriotism in Australia without involving sport in some way. If you don't believe me, do a little research into how Australian public holidays are celebrated. Or even just look at the classic example - Melbourne have a public holiday for a three and a half minute horse race. And yes, a good percentage of the population outside of Melbourne would like the race time moved by half an hour, so school kids and the parents who pick them up could watch it.
*utterly refuses to say anything about Kiwis and Phar Lap, except to reply: Makybe Diva is OURS, NYAH!*