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Jun. 13th, 2011 01:03 pmIt doesn't feel like the Queen's Birthday Weekend. In NSW and the ACT the Queen's Birthday is marked by fireworks, but this year there weren't any. Guy Fawkes' Night stopped being Guy Fawkes' Night when I moved to Sydney, because of the firework control (and because it turned out to be more a Melbourne thing), and now we don't have Queen's Birthday. The nights in my neighbourhood were quiet the whole time. Not even a domestic broke the placidity.
I don't miss the dangerous side of it. A kid at my primary school lost his eyesight and damaged an arm due to backyard fireworks, and I've worried about the well-being any number of animals since I was a child.
I certainly miss the fun side, however. Rockets that won't light. Big streamer fireworks that pump their sparkle out sideways by mistake and scoot across the yard, chasing errant parents. And the fountains - I loved the fountains. Whenever I was given a chance to pick a firework, I took my time, but I always chose a fountain.
I wonder if the Queen even knows that the day we celebrate for her birthday (not actually her birthday - her day of birth gets no holiday, unlike mine) is now a very ordinary long weekend, with most of Canberra vanished interstate to escape the cold? I wonder if we should move her birthday back about six weeks, so that Canberrans can search for snow, instead. Ski season to replace icy miseries?
My all-consuming question is "Why didn't I even notice the silence until just now?" We have just a half day of holiday left, and I didn't even realise I had missed it.
I don't miss the dangerous side of it. A kid at my primary school lost his eyesight and damaged an arm due to backyard fireworks, and I've worried about the well-being any number of animals since I was a child.
I certainly miss the fun side, however. Rockets that won't light. Big streamer fireworks that pump their sparkle out sideways by mistake and scoot across the yard, chasing errant parents. And the fountains - I loved the fountains. Whenever I was given a chance to pick a firework, I took my time, but I always chose a fountain.
I wonder if the Queen even knows that the day we celebrate for her birthday (not actually her birthday - her day of birth gets no holiday, unlike mine) is now a very ordinary long weekend, with most of Canberra vanished interstate to escape the cold? I wonder if we should move her birthday back about six weeks, so that Canberrans can search for snow, instead. Ski season to replace icy miseries?
My all-consuming question is "Why didn't I even notice the silence until just now?" We have just a half day of holiday left, and I didn't even realise I had missed it.