Australia Day is fun.
Yes, it’s a day when we celebrate being Australians, living in the best country in the world, but it’s not a day for being aggressively nationalistic or bombastic; no weapons parades like the Chinese, no marches or saluting the flag; it’s a day for being laid-back, inclusive and having a country-wide party.
Our local council, like others all across Australia, will be laying on sausage sizzle breakfasts, and lunchtime and evening barbies – free, naturally – musical events, competitions for kids, face painting, sport and so on, culminating in fireworks. One display early, for the littlies, and another later in the evening for the grown-ups.
Everyone will have a great time, and if some have a bit too much to drink, the blue heelers will do their best to be tolerant and try to get them home in one piece; you’ll only get booked if you’re behaving like a cast-iron drongo.
We’re a young country, so at times like this we’re inclined to act like kids; pollies, big end of town, Defence Force and all – we see no harm in that.
Even the most militant of the ‘original owners’ (‘aboriginals’ to you) have in the main given up holding protests about Captain Cook and the invasion; they join in and enjoy themselves with everyone else, then go back to being militant after Australia Day’s finished.
Everybody smiles, the sun shines, the surf’s up – who would live anywhere else?
Boadicea's Chariot 
Happy Oz Day Boa and Bearsy 🙂
My Country (Dorothea MacKellar 1883-1968)
The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze …
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Yes, have an absolute hoot tomorrow. I’ve been lucky enough to experience several Australia Days at first hand. There is no better place to be.
Soutie – That image is right on so many levels. Class!
OZ
Love the picture, love the poem (which I believe is compulsory learning for every immigrant, or if it isn’t, it should be), love the lupine sentiments. Thanks guys! 🙂
If only I could join you … I too have experienced Australia Day, just the once (a party at Mildura Base Hospital residences in 1988) and would love to be over there again, soaking up the warmth.
Have a good one.
Good on ya’, Pseu. 😀
Good sentiments Bearsy …. enjoy! Me jealous.
Have a great day!
Have a good day!
Any excuse for a party – Enjoy!
As Mrs FEEG is of a semi-Caledonian persuasion, I believe we will be partaking of a Burns Night supper tonight. Haggis is not too bad if it is baked and not fried, and neeps and tatties are OK if a little boring, as long as they are well seasoned. However, we will also be partaking of some single malt during the course of the evening, and that should make things better.
I would still rather be at a barbie on the beach though!
a a = AT A. Bum yet again!
Happy Australia day, you have a lot to be proud of, not least the immense spirit shown during the floods. If anyone is in any doubt that the ‘Digger’ ethic is somehow fading from the Australian people, take a look at the Australian soldier who was given the VC a few days ago. I saw a picture of him in uniform proudly holding his two young daughters just after being presented with VC, talk about an upstanding, rock solid guy. With men like this you will be celebrating Australia day for many millenia to come
Or is he an ‘armed thug?’
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
……As lang’s my arm.
I assume Australia Day was picked as the 26th, by the Scots who arrived on the First Fleet, and realized that it was Burns Birthday, taking GMT into account? 🙂
G,day Bearsy.
I had been waiting to wish you a good Australia Day until it was the day itself in all Australian territory.
As I see that it is now after midnight on Heard Island and the McDonald Islands, to say nothing of Shag island, it’s time to wish you and Boa, Donald, Bilby, Bootsy2 and my brother in law a good one.
I also see that poetry is being quoted a bit here. In honour of the day that’s in it, I’ve been going back over the works of one of my favourite Aussie poets, Henry Wilson, Seriously disturbed individual in many ways, in my opinion. but I still like ‘Scots of the Riverna’.
‘The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time—
They were Scots of the Riverina, and to run from home was a crime.
The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned,
And he scratched his name from the Bible when the old wife’s back was turned.
A year went past and another. There were calls from the firing-line;
They heard the boy had enlisted, but the old man made no sign.
His name must never be mentioned on the farm by Gundagai—
They were Scots of the Riverina with ever the kirk hard by.
The boy came home on his “final”, and the township’s bonfire burned.
His mother’s arms were about him; but the old man’s back was turned.
The daughters begged for pardon till the old man raised his hand—
A Scot of the Riverina who was hard to understand.
The boy was killed in Flanders, where the best and bravest die.
There were tears at the Grahame homestead and grief in Gundagai;
But the old man ploughed at daybreak and the old man ploughed till the mirk—
There were furrows of pain in the orchard while his housefolk went to the kirk.
The hurricane lamp in the rafters dimly and dimly burned;
And the old man died at the table when the old wife’s back was turned.
Face down on his bare arms folded he sank with his wild grey hair
Outspread o’er the open Bible and a name re-written there.’
Happy Australia Day.
We’re having a mini-celebration here too!
Cheers. 🙂
A Very Happy Australia Day to all our Australian Charioteers!
Long live Australia!
Thank you, Mr Mackie. 🙂
Thanks to everyone for their good wishes – much appreciated.
I shall, in the spirit of Australia Day and this post, ignore Bravo’s quotation, out of context, of a remark of mine on another post. But I have allowed it to stand.
Hey true, Blue, keep the show on the road. Listening here with speakers at max! 🙂
Sob, but with a smiley thing.
Thanks for all your good wishes. Has been an excellent day, relaxing on the beach with a few friends and a good book. Lunch at the marina, now home before the fireworks display.
Hope all my mates, in the Eastern States, have had a good one too!