I'm more proud than I thought possible to announce that as of today I'll be rejoicing alongside my Mum! After 35-ish years of living permanently in Australia (plus a few years before she was married - sacrebleu!) my dear mother decided to become an Australian citizen! We've got no idea where she came up with the idea or what spurred her on, but after months of forms, references, police checks and finally today's citizenship ceremony she's a true blue Aussie. I'm so proud I could burst!
Her first text to me as an Australian? "Goodday" ... I had to do a little bit of training ... "I think you'll find it's 'G'Day' now. Learn the lingo Sheila"
For we are young and free ...
thanks to the hundreds of thousand of men and women who have risked and given their lives for my right to live in freedom. I'm a little ashamed to say that last Sunday morning was the first ANZAC dawn service I've ever attended that wasn't on a work day. In fact, I'd never attended a dawn service before I moved to London and prior to that I'd never been to a service that I wasn't forced to sit through at school.
I'm not really the sort of people who's eternally grateful for the life I get to lead - I tend more towards immediate emotional gratification. But for the last few years I've been waking up at the crack of dawn, hopping on the night bus and dragging my sorry self to Hyde Park Corner all for the 5am service (not just for the tea and biscuits)!
For the next 40 minutes I'm filled with this indescribable pride and a most unusual sense of history. From living in a country with a past as far back as you can imagine, in a city with buildings I walk past every day that were built before anyone in Europe even imagined my homeland existed, to giving thanks for sacrifices that occurred within my grandfather's lifetime, for those people fighting battles every day as I make my way to work.
It doesn't matter what I think of the wars that are currently occurring, only that I'm grateful that there are, and always have been, people who are willing to fight for my right to work my guts out in an office all day in relative peace.
I'm a proud little Aussie this week. Don't get me wrong, I sang 'God Save the Queen' with pride as well, but as the British national election draws ever closer I can't help but been a teensy bit more proud of those valiant Anzacs at Gallipoli.
We will remember them. Lest we forget.
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