Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Towards ANZAC Day

On Saturday I accompanied Irene, Sally and Zoe to Albany Westfield Shopping Mall. It is a vast area and a lot of time was spent on clothes buying. I bought a smart summer shirt in KMart for £4.50


It was getting dark when we got back and we were at the back of the city and the sun was setting.


On Sunday Irene and I went to the same church as last week. It was a good service. I still find it odd that large churches here have the facility for selling luxury coffee and food with a credit card.


On Monday it was back to our Emily time. In the afternoon the shower cubicle man came and completed this phase of the building renovations.


The unit is very smart with two shower heads and a fitted glass door over a tiled cubicle.


On the Tuesday the main feature of the day was taking the girls to their dance class and buying snapper and chips for tea.


Wednesday was a special day. It was ANZAC Day. Zoe was in the parade with the Brownies.




There was at least three fly passes.






It looked as if most of the town had turned out. After the parade and placing the poppy wreathes there was a short service on the main shopping street. There was an interesting talk on the origin of ANZAC Day. It seems that the first Australian and Kiwi troops fought their first battle of World War 1 at Gallipoli when a number of them, greater than the population of St Heliers were seriously injured and about half that number were killed.


The service was another opportunity to inspire patriotism. I can't but think that as countries like the UK become more multi-cultural they need more symbols of patriotism. As far as I understand it there is no party like the BNP here. 


Before going back for lunch we walked along the beach which was very crowded with families who stayed on after the Anzac service.


Sally had made some Anzac biscuits which are delicious.


In the afternoon Irene and I went into the city to buy presents. We arrived at the Victoria Park Market (We had previously visited this in 2003) to find that it was undergoing a £10,000,000 face lift. The charm of the old market is disappearing, but its chimney will stay.


Not finding much to buy in the few open units we walked on up to the Sky Tower and managed to purchase one or two bits. Walking about the very quiet city it felt like Sunday. Even the car parking is free.


It was still quite early and sunny so we drove off to Cornwall Park. The park was full of families enjoying the day. We made it to the restaurant minutes before the 4.00 deadline. The purpose of this visit was to enjoy a pot of English tea and scones with the voucher that we had been given.



 Returning home and enjoying our pasta meal it still has a Sunday feel except that Irene and I are shattered by all our walking.

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