A looonnnnnggg, long weekend

About the only time I give two hoots about the Royal Family is if there is a wedding on or it's the Queen's Birthday long weekend. Thankfully it is a public holiday here in the Australian Capital Territory too (but not in Western Australia - apparently they draw the weekend out of a hat), which means a 3 day weekend (or a 2 day one if you worked Saturday, which I did). Apparently Liz turned another year older on 21 April, but whatevs. We used to celebrate the Monach's birthday on the actual day, but since King George V died, we have stuck to the second Monday in June. Free history lesson. You are welcome :-)

I used to love this weekend heaps more when it used to be Cracker Night. Back in the "good ol' days" you could actually purchase firecrackers and let them off in your very own backyard. I loved getting all rugged up, going outside in the cold and helping Dad work out which order to let them off in. You had to save the really big ones until last. Dad would set up an ice-cream bucket of sand as far away from trees and the house as possible and light them and we'd ooohh and ahhh. In the middle, we would get to hold sparklers. I can remember the smell, the pretty lights, the cold noses....

Thanks to some numb-nuts who are incompetent and had to push things a bit too far, the hospital emergency wards would get filled up with people missing appendages and so the politicians decided we couldn't be responsible for ourselves and now you can't buy crackers anymore. Except in Canberra! You could go to the nation's capital and purchase porn and firecrackers in Fyshwick. I can't tell how excited I was at the prospect this year (the firecrackers, not the porn - get your minds out of the gutter). Except now it's only porn. And furniture. They banned them in ACT too. Spoil sports. I guess sparklers will have to suffice. But it's not the same, I'm telling you. If they try to ban fire pits, I'm going to start emailing politicians!

In Australia, it's also the start of the ski season! Given we are now 3 hours closer to the snow than we used to be, we are getting pretty excited about it! But even though it has been chilly on occasion in Canberra, apparently it needs to get more chilly, because grass skiing:

In other crappy news, this leaving the house and interacting with other people (AKA the great unwashed) has nasty side-effects. I'm sick. Not. Happy. Jan. And because we are very shortly staffed, I've just finished my 6th day of work in a row, despite the fogginess that accompanies Codral cold and flu tablets. God knows where I've sent people on their holidays! Maybe they got a bargain...feeling very vague...

So this will be me as much as possible this weekend, because Adairs was having a sale and this throw rug was 50% off and how warm does it look?

The kids have been back into their homeschooling, but I'll save the deets for another post, because that throw rug and I have a hot date tonight ;-)

If you are having a long weekend, what are you up to?

How good was cracker night?! What else do you miss about your childhood?

Hit me with your best cold and flu tips!