Australia Day 260122

 The 26th January is called Australia Day and commemorates the day on which the first fleed sailed into Sydney Harbour and Europeans began settling the continent. For many, and certainly many of Aboriginal ancestry, this day doesn't warrant celebration. For most of us however it is a day to sit back and recollect the nation's past. It is also a day on which many civic honours are bestowed and immigrants take up Australian citizenship. Most towns, and certainly Armidale, have a large timetable of events and so I headed downtown to Central Park to see what was on. Indeed, quite a large number of people were assembling, despite the weather. Throughout January this year the sun has successfully been trying very hard to hide and the town is blanketed in cloud.

The Central Park area had a flag-pole flying the Australian, Aboriginal and another - presumably NSW flags:

Adjacent was an ad hoc Armidale Regional Council office presumably running the show:

An adjacent site had just held an Aboriginal Smoking Ceremony - presumably to welcome guests and residents to the day's events. This little box was 'smoking' when I arrived.

The Aborigines were in 'traditional' dress - much of it in the form of body paint:

Nearby was seating for forthcoming entertainment performances, which I had to miss.

And the most busy part of the area was given over to selling food and drink.

Interestingly, I didn't see any business selling Australian nosh. But two stand-outs were vehicles Ezidi and Lebanese food. I decided to buy an Ezidi lunch and joined a long queue of people doing the same. The Ezidis in Armidale are refugees from Northern Iraq where their culture and many residents were massacred by Islamic State. Here's the menu I saw and I chose two items. One was Kibbah - a kind of chicken wrap and the other was Biryani - rice cooked with vegetables, peanuts and sultanas. For them, the sultanas were not the wives of Tutrkish Sultans!

Dot and I ate the meals on my return home and they were really quite nice. As I've mentioned before, our little town of 25,000 people ahs an amazing array of restaurants. Thin about your own towns or cities. Do you have ethnic foods like Ezidi (Iraq), Lebanese, Korean, Japanese, Chinese (several), Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, and so on?

AS

New Year Fireworks 21-22

 G'day everyone, I hope you enjoyed the usual fireworks displays last night wherever you were located. Armidale put on two displays as usual, one at 9pm on 31 December and the other at mid-night. I attended the former and it was a great occasion. Here I'm viewing the Wicklow Oval in Armidale's creeklands at dusk. The sun has hidden itself below the sky-line, but left a lovely glow.

Soon after, hoards of families invaded Wicklow Oval and there were huge numbers of kids running around furiously, barely restrained by their anxious parents. I was 'alone' as Dot preferred not to come. The crowds were also multi-ethnic often chattering away in strange languages, but all were anxiously awaiting what turned out to be a magnificent display that went on for perhaps 15 minutes. While awaiting the start, the field's floodlights lit up the assembling crowd as shown below.

Then, all of a sudden, the lights were turned off and we huddled together in the dark. A few seconds later the display commenced with a bang! There were many different elements to the display, many of them quite creative and elegant. These few pictures show something of the art-work for which the Armidale Regional Council should be congratulated.

The crowd was raucus and delighted with what they saw and the applause at the end was enthusiastic. After that, hundreds if not thousands of people raced to their cars to drive away from the site quickly. That included me and I took a long way home to avoid congested intersections!

I hope all my readers will have a happy and prosperous new year!

AS