365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 26 (Tuesday 26 January 2010) : Pancakes, Sleeping and Fireworks - Happy Ostraya Day!!

Happy Ostraya Day all! Aussie Aussie Aussie.....well you know....

After last night's big night out in Gayland, we (my beautiful guy and I) woke up a scant 5 hours later, showered - thank god as we might never have woken up properly otherwise! - met up with our friend, Fahmi, and headed over to Marrickville for traditional Aussie....blueberry pancakes. What the ?! The pancakes were lovingly prepared, along with sausages, scrambled eggs and cut pineapple and kiwi fruit, by our good friend John (he of John and Essie and the kids fame) who is American, and cooked pancakes the way he would normally do them. No problem as they were delish with lashings of maple syrup (not ginger beer - sorry Enid and the Famous Five!) but I did say that to be truly Aussie, they had to have been almost crepe-like (but a little thicker) with lemon juice and sugar.

That patriotic pedantry aside, we had an absolutely lovely morning with them, and then prompty crashed and burned on the bed for 2 hours, which was divine, fabulous, wonderful, and all those glowing adjectival words you use when you get to have a nap after a sleep-deprived night. After that zzzzz-soaked nirvana, we drowsily went to work on designing my beautiful guy's new IKEA wardrobe - more fun than you'd think but not as much fun as endless sex and Margaritas on the beach at Cancun - and then refreshed ourselves before heading out again with Fahmi and our night clubbing buddy from the night before, Steve.

We arrived at Enmore Park around 7 (with John and Essie and kids) after miraculously getting a park in very crowded streets, and promptly had some insanely delicious Serenity ice cream. Nothing like dessert before the main course, which in this case was a mish mash of Goan and mediterranean food. The wonderful thing about the Australia Day fair in Enmore Park, apart from the fireworks exploding right above in the most intimate pyrotechnics display I have ever seen (which transfixed John and Essie's kids as the photos show - Ben didn't blink the entire time I think!), is the exuberant intoxicating mix of cultures and nationalities that all come together in a fabulous microcosm of Australian society. The community feel and the chance to mix with so many amazing people, all of whom value the peace, and inclusiveness of Australia, and the time spent with our very own close friends made the night something truly special!

As did my beautiful guy's car hitting 222222 on the odometer, an event we brough on by driving the last 4km from 222218 around the backblocks of Erskineville, and then celebrated by photographing the dashboard out the front of a pub to the point where the bouncer came over to check out what the hell we were up to! It was a lot of silly, wonderful fun and one of the reasons I love my guy so much - he takes the serious stuff seriously but has fun with everything else, and is as sentimental and goofy as I am. I love him, and this was a fun ending to a great day!

Oh and last, but definitely not least, here's an adorable photo of my gorgeous darling niece, Zara ( in the arms of her mum, my sister Helen) at her first Australia Day celebrations on the Gold Coast :