While it is still barely the 25th January here in London, the 26th is well underway Down Under and of course marks Australia’s national day. To celebrate Australia day this year, I have a sister in London who is baking the enigmatic Aussie cake the Lamington, another sister in Birmingham who is baking Anzac biscuits (a bit early on that one), and as for me, well, I indoctrinated my 3 month old son, Ronan,  into all that is Green and Gold this evening, by donning him in Wallabies kit, the official baby-grow for the Australian rugby union team. So as not to make him feel left out, Margaret and I also sported a Wallabies jersey. It was easier convincing Ronan of the merits of the Green and Gold, than Irish Margaret. But, my wife, will get her revenge on St Patrick’s day.

Happy Australia Day

I’d love to celebrate Australia Day with a schooner of Toohey’s New in the Australian bar in Covent Garden, but given my schedule and task list at the moment, I will be content with Vegemite on toast.

That was one of the memorable lines from the 1981 Peter Weir Film, Gallipoli. Great Australian film, and one of Mel Gibson’s first as an actor. It commemorates the WWI landings of the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp) troops on the Gallipoli peninsula, entrance to the Turkish Dardanelles, on April 25th, 1915. The campaign was meant to turn the war against the Turks, but due to a strategic error by the Brits, it meant the ANZACs landed in the wrong place, and it was literally lambs to the slaughter. It was a huge blunder. Over 8,000 Aussies and 2,700 New-Zealand troops died during the campaign. There were also terrible losses by the Turkish too, which why today, many Australian pilgrims, together with the Turkish people, converge on ANZAC cove in Gallipoli, for a dawn service to remember all those who were lost.

WWI was not the first military campaign for the Australians, their first official one was in the late 1800′s, the Boer War in South Africa. But such was the loss at Gallipoli, this campaign galvanised Australia, and the very notion of ANZAC has since been part of the national identity. ANZAC is an Australian icon. Today, many dawn services, to the tune of a Last Post bugle, would have happened around the country. Aussies would also be making batches of ANZAC biscuits. (My sister in Birmingham did so last night, and put me to shame). And of course the game of Two-up, which was played by the ANZACs during WWI, is legalised in Aussie pubs just for the day, April 25th. While Australia certainly commemorates Nov 11th, WWII Armistice Day, ANZAC Day, a national public holiday today, is really the national day, where all lost Australian troops, no matter what conflict, are commemorated.

Lest we forget!

The other day, there was a freak thunder storm in Sydney, resulting in flash flooding. Even Sydney’s ANZAC bridge suffered from the flooding, causing traffic chaos. My sister, Bernadette, was Johnny on the spot and took a whole bunch of great photos taking in the imposing brooding cloud-cover over Pyrmont and Sydney’s inner west, through to the flooding on ANZAC bridge, and then the beautiful sunset that finished it all off a short time later. The photos were so great, Bernadette, managed to get them published on Australia’s Number 1 news site, ninemsn news. The links to the ninemsn news slide show and official News Story with Bernadette’s photo headlining are below

• ninemsn news: Extreme weather set to continue across Australia
• ninemsn news: Slide Show

Bernadette sent round some of her storm photos in email yesterday, below are a couple of them.

Before: Thunder storms consume Pyrmont and Anzac Bridge, Sydney, Australia 

After: The sun breaks through a short while later

Now, all I need to do is get Bernadette to start blogging on her Windows Live Space….

In January of 1992, my younger sister Bernadette was given a dog for her 11th birthday. Bernadette bestowed upon her the name Daisy, although I seem to recall my mum had some influence. Officially, Daisy was described as a Corgy-Terrier cross – but the family consensus  was that there was a touch of mutt in there too, albeit a cute mutt touch at that. While Daisy in theory belonged to my youngest sibling, this wee canine bundle of energy quickly endeared herself to the whole family, and from very early on we all considered her to be the family dog. Yes, this even included my Dad who wasn’t a big fan of admitting a dog to the family – but Daisy quickly had him under her paw, and Dad had his shovel under her poop.

For 16 years, Daisy brought laughter, cheek, and warmth to the Kennedy household.  So you can see where this dog blog is going. This past week has been a sad one for us, as we all had to say goodbye – and given the spread of our family these days, some of us had to say farewell from afar. This was pretty tough, reading all the emails from home and seeing the photos of Daisy at rest. But, I can rest too in the assurance that our fondness for this little dog, certainly isn’t diminished by our geographical distance. It might sound daft given Daisy was a dog, but she was much loved by us all and will be missed. It’s kind of amazing really how such a little thing forged such a profound bond with our family.

A wonderful exclamation mark to Daisy’s life was that the day after she passed away, a heavy thunder-storm brought another little dog to my brother’s front door. Michael and his wife Meredith had cared for Daisy dotingly in the last few years, and so it was a very welcome respite for them to have another dog pining for their attention the day after Daisy had left their home. In the last email I’d read, this little waif of a dog called Spud, was sleeping on their sofa. A nice reminder that life goes on. Long live Daisy, as we’ve all been saying this week. Below is a photo of our Daisy, that I took when visiting home last year.

Daisy, Jan 1992 – Feb 2008