It's the beginning of the bank holiday weekend for the Queen's birthday, which seems odd in a country that keeps holding referendums to decide whether to cut their ties with the monarchy. I've asked a few aussies about the issue and they can't believe we don't have a public holiday like they do. Most of them say they like the Queen but can't stand Prince Charles; they think he's irrelevant to them and I have to agree because I'm not sure how he's relevant to us either.
They should give the crown to William say the aussies, not really understanding that it'd never happen. We have good and bad monarchs, we take the rough with the smooth. From speaking to them, I reckon that's when the vote will swing towards becoming a republic, when Charles becomes king, then either they'll be a bank holiday short or they'll invent a new one. Or perhaps they'll resurrect the so-called butchers' picnic, an old australian January bank holiday that started out because butchers wanted days off as well as bankers. In the meantime, if I'm being sarky, they've got the Queen on their money, ergo they are British.
Anyway, in good bank holiday tradition, the weather is shocking and in the exact opposite of the UK, the TV stations and newspapers are having a field day with the news that it's actually windy and rainy, you know, like how the British tabloids love to report a scorcher. The lunchtime news on channel Ten screamed "Wild weather playing havoc across Sydney". It's really not you know, not unless you count playing havoc with your hair. They should get over it.
I think I've mentioned before how dreadful the telly is in Australia (an aussie bloke I work with described it to me as "drivel" and he's right) but I'm not sure I've explained that it's the quality of the sets as much as the quality of the programmes themselves.
The breakfast TV studio, for example, includes a feature window which I assume is meant to give you the impression they're sitting in a house and there's some sort of garden out the back. Problem is, behind the glass it's just another stud wall, exactly the same as the one in the studio - they haven't even bothered painting a scene onto it or anything. And because the weather is bad, they've planted three very random trees behind the glass and they are blasting them with a fan and throwing buckets of water over them. When the camera moves you catch glimpses of the wooden struts holding the set up and this morning the camera was at such a terrible angle that I could see the boiler and all the pipes supplying it, which rather detracted from the effort they were going to with the fans and the water. I wasn't fooled at all.
I've never seen British weather in Australia before; we've always been here in the summer or been up at the top end durng the winter. It's grey and dark, rainy, windy and cold. It's like Warrington in November, it feels like Christmas is coming; I've got what the expats call season lag where your brain is confused by having the seasons the wrong way round. Like how the moon is the wrong way up.
The aussies love it, they love being able to say it's chilly. We have a free magazine that comes through the door called "The Beast" and the editor of this month's edition was moaning that the temperatures in May were hitting 25 degrees when they really ought to have been much lower. I'd like to think they're praying for the rain (they should be - the drought is a serious problem) but actually I think they just want to get out the new season fashions, the scarves and the chunky knits and Ugg boots.
And here's Ella modelling this season's must-haves for the discerning australian toddler; a Dorothy Dinosaur raincoat, ladybird umbrella and matching wellington boots. This afternoon we are baking banana loaf and guess what she's wearing?
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