11 June 2007
Queen's Birthday
It is the Queen’s Birthday here, which is to say that the land is in a festive mood, though it is not actually the Queen’s birthday, but an excellent three day weekend that has left Canberra deflated like a limp balloon.
That took me aback, a bit. The Queen actually turned eighty-one back on the 21st of April, but in long keeping with Royal tradition, she celebrates it officially in the second or third week in June, when the weather is better.
That would be north of the equator, of course, since it was colder and grayer down here, as the low pressure front moves off to the east.
The capital will inflate again tomorrow with the return of the bureaucrats, they say, and I am at sixes and sevens, not knowing quite what to do with myself. I should have planned some destination and got myself moving in some direction. I managed to sleep through the night and rise with this version of the dawn, but it was to no avail.
I tried to make contact with my company, but that likewise was a feckless effort. I even provided my mobile phone number, purchased at the mall from a phone salesman whose demeanor demonstrated that there are many universal features between malls, regardless of the where they are in relation to the equator.
65% of Australians are in favor of retaining the holiday of the Queen’s birthday, by the way, even though there has been some tension in the relationship since the beginning of the relationship, and more of late, as the last trappings of the Empire and even the Commonwealth begin to chafe a bit.
Still, over five hundred Australians were recognized with the Queen’s honors, and it is a gracious thing for her to do.
The First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay in January of 1788, and a remarkable trip with a remarkable cargo it was. I have seen the initials carved on the rocks on the shore of HMAS Kuttabul in Sydney. Things were not as they had been promised by Captain James Cook. The soil was poor, and there was little water.
The Marines were said to be drunk and dissolute, the sailors disinterested, and the convicts- well you know about convicts. How they all survived on these wild shores is the story of why the Australians are the people they are today.
It is said that the aboriginal people looked on with interest and suspicion.
They were right to do so.
Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com