fireworks

This weekend we celebrate Queen Elizabeth's birthday with a national holiday. Her birthday is actually April 21st, but hey with Easter and ANZAC day we have a truckload of public holidays in April, so the government looked around for a nice empty month, and now we have the Queens birthday weekend in June. I'm sure she doesn't mind.


The Australian Capital Territory is the only place in Australia where personal fireworks are legal, and this is the only weekend in the year when we can buy and use them. There's too much danger of bushfire in the summer, so they chose a weekend in the middle of winter. All that rain we had yesterday makes it even less of a worry.

All weekend, as soon as it gets dark, I can hear the sounds of fireworks in the neighbourhood around me...at least between the hours of 5 and 10pm. It's all very civilised here in the cold capital. Nothing like those heathen Japanese running down to the park in the middle of summer with enough flammable and explosive items to burn a witch at the stake, lighting fuses with no adult supervision and cavorting about as if fireworks were merely for fun. (*sigh* good times, good times...) Here we are sensible and considerate.

Can't think why I haven't gotten around to buying any this year. One of life's little mysteries...