Rat-a-tat-tat & hooty-hoot-toot! A little fanfare, please!(Even though the French lost the war with Britain on the Plains of Abraham, they left behind some swell poutine! We love ya, Québec!)
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(Photo in La Forteresse de Louisbourg, Cape Breton, Aug.2007)
From sea...*
(Photo Prince Edward Island, August 2006)
...to shining sea!Please note the Canadian flag (hence the red & white theme).
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(Photo on ferry to Vancouver Island, June 2008)
Today is our national holiday. As a holiday, it doesn't mean much if one is not employed. As a rah-rah-rah, siss-boom-bah nationalistic big deal...well, there will be fireworks shooting all across the country, weather permitting. Even in the humble little village where I reside, there will be a respectable display of fireworks let off in the ball park (is it ever used for anything else? I've never noticed) at 10 pm, weather permitting. Aye, there's the rub! It's pretty damp in most areas of Canada today. Even in our capital where they give off a mighty impressive big bang of sparkly effects in the night sky. I experienced one such spectacle live and in person there a few years ago but was even more awed by the tremendous lightning storm earlier in the day. It wiped out all the planned entertainment, drenched the revellers, and chased them with lightning bolts, thunder claps, and torrential rain into the normally staid lobby of the Chateau Laurier where they dripped all over the furnishings. I know this because I had had the good sense to shelter there before the skies opened their flood gates and the wind blew away the fun.
Traditionally I head down to our local fireworks but will have to forego it this time due to my still wonky ankle. Sometimes the weather is too wet or too windy and the show is postponed for a day or two. Slightly anti-climactic (or should that be "anti-climatic"?) But tonight I have other cause for celebration. Pierre is coming back from a 3-week stint on the west coast at my mother's place in Vancouver and I'll be fetching him at the airport here on the east coast just after midnight. This time last year the scene was reversed and I was sitting in the kitchen of my mother's house waiting for him to arrive out there. Yes, it's true--I do suffer from Bi-coastal Personality Disorder but that's what makes me truly Canadian.
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(To see another of my quintessentially Canadian photos, go over to the Blogger Friends' Photo Club and enjoy the other entries while you're there. My fellow Canuck, Mountain Mamma is doing a great job of hostessing the site.)
This bizarrely patriotic video cracks me up. Close to the beginning of it, you'll see some big rocky things on a beach (they look like giant turds but are referred to as "flower pots"). They're situated about a 15 minute drive from where I live. That's why they're famous.
Hi Lynne! Happy Canada Day!!! Yey for poutine!!! :)
ReplyDeleteWhoa is me, rural Quebec...no Canada Day celebrations. I'll watch the good old CBC tonight for the Ottawa shindig! I've been to Louisbourg and that photo of PEI is calling me again...
:-))
Hi Rain: The good old CBC Ottawa shindig has a pretty good line-up this year, but it doesn't broadcast in Atlantic Canada until 11 pm (half an hour later in Nfld.)!
ReplyDeleteFunky video, but what I'm wondering is what on earth are the things that go splashing into the water at about 55 seconds into it ??? So Canada day was today, USA day is the 4th, and France is the 14th... quite a concentration of patriotic fervor... but is the nation state really the best way to keep planet Earth organized ??? Bi-Coastal Personality huh ? What does that make me... Trans-Oceanic Personality in disorder ??? Slightly chaotic to say the least. Saw where you said you hadn't read the Hitchhikers Guide yet... well, it's another I'd highly recommend for the sprained ankle reading list. It is highly concentrated crazy madness. I love it...
ReplyDeleteG'day, Owen: I can empathize (first I wrote "emphasize"...maybe that, too) with your TOPS (Trans-Oceanic Personality Syndrome)diagnosis. But at least one of the more charming symptoms of the disorder is the ability to express oneself with a mystifying accent in one's second language.
ReplyDeleteAs for the things falling from the sky in the video, I believe they're logs. That is how logging is done in Canada. The logs simply fall from the trees and the lumberjacks float along in boats to gather them up. It's a "green" thing: no more nastily polluting chainsaws and logging trucks, denuded hillsides and lost habitats. As well, the unpleasantness of screaming trees being cut down in the prime of life has been done away with as they have been genetically modified to grow logs rather than branches. When the log limbs get too heavy, they simply fall off and that signifies the logging season. Citizens are advised to stay out of the woods during this time. Not insignificantly, there has been a demonstrable spike in the number of births 9 months after this season. Babies born at this time are referred to as "log jams" or "wood chips."
If you have any further questions I'd be pleased to answer them. I've worked in Tourism before so am well qualified to provide reliable, up-to-date information.
Get out ! No way ! I think it is a film that was run backwards of a test launch of the new Canadian Defence Ministry secret weapon ... Cruise Log Missiles, as they burst out of the water from a submarine, but backwards...
ReplyDeleteI'm convinced you'd make a great tour guide, for sure ! You'd have them howling with laughter, like I am right now... before I galumph my way up the stairs and into my bed for my beauty sleep...
Thanks for that lovely log strewn picture to dream on...