Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!

Saddle up your kangaroo, slap on your cork hat and throw another shrimp on the barbie – it’s time to celebrate the beginning of white settlement in Australia! Genocide? Dispossession of land and culture? We call it a public holiday! So grab your Union Jack (antipodean colony version) and wave it around like Elizabeth your queen has deigned to accept our offer of an all-expenses-paid trip to the arse end of the world. After all, like every other Australian, I never refuse a holiday, especially one with ‘Australia’ or ‘ANZAC’ in it to remind us we have not (yet) been annexed by the USA as its fifty-first state.

But enough of the wry political commentary. What do I know? I’m just questionable pig parts disguised as a suitable sandwich filling.

I will be celebrating with a picnic at a nearby dam/drought-ravaged mud-puddle, eating ham and cheese rolls (no snags), marshmallows (Miss Lonie’s request) and home-made cinnamon buns (no pav either, I’m afraid – and incidentally, my trans-tasman bros, pavlova was created HERE. You can have Russell Crowe). And I will be thinking that yes, this country has its problems, some of them daunting, shameful, and chronic, but it’s actually a pretty good place to live.

Happy Australia Day!