Wednesday 30 January 2008

Australians all, and ostriches



Australians all, and ostriches.. For most of her primary school years, that is what my daughter Madame Mouse insisted was the opening line of our fair national anthem. Emus, ostriches, I wasn't much fussed, In a country that eats both of the animals on its Coat of Arms, we don't worry too much about that.

So, for our Nationals Day, down at Dromana, the Apex and Lions Clubs and the CFA put on a barbie of gargantuan proportions.

Bands played.



Ladies of the CFA Ladies Auxiliary, wearing frilly hats hand out Damper and jam (no cream, by virtue of our ridiculous food handling laws)



Gentlemen of the Lions Club manned the barbie, dishing out free egg and bacon rolls and barbied snags, in white bread and fried onions. Gotta love the dead horse!



For a woman who's hubbie has had a massive heart attack, I have an unnatural obsession with bacon.



And finally, may I present to you, courtesy of Dromana Lions Club, a FREE egg and bacon white bread roll:



Invasion Day issues aside, the Aussie spirit of dead things on bread, of volunteering for your community, of giving stuff away free, of BBQ'ing in 34C heat by the beach, of white bread and snags with tomato sauce, was alive and well this past weekend.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where would we be PG without our volunteers? It shitted me a few years back when P.Costello pontificated that we (us huddling masses) should donate more of our time doing volunteering work. Whilst I agree with the sentiment, as our number of volunteers declines yearly, not a thought went to why we HAVE to freaking volunteer in the first place!
Try funding things adequately Mr-I-could-have-been-PM-but-I-lacked-the-ticker, Costello!

purple goddess said...

The wonderful thing about a small seaside town like Dromana, is that the vollies are the hub. Everyone belongs to the Lions or the CFA. Furry is a CFA vollie, but it has actually worked against him, when applying for jobs.

It seems everone loves the CFA boys at fire time, but no-one wants to employ one just incases they have to take time off.

It's bullshit.

Adequate funding, indeed.

Anonymous said...

I was also a CFA vollie & in our town, like yours everyone loves em during fire season. Its the blokey, beery & porn nite watching culture that have some rubbed the wrong way, perhaps arguably so.
Without being judgemental about the culture though,they still volunteer their time-something that many out of work people here could afford to do minus the value judgement. Oops I sound like Alan Jones!

grocer said...

PG, those hats don't look like they offer much shade... Did you get burnt wearing them?

Jazz said...

Free food is truly a wonderful thing...

purple goddess said...

Grocer,

as fetching as I would look in one of those hats, I eschewed that particular fashion statement and chose a more modest brimmed straw hat that matched my ensemble.

And jazz...

Free food IS a truly wonderful thing!!

stickyfingers said...

I love E&B on white with dead 'orse. We had our BBQ at the Balnarring Cup, picnic races and put $2 punts on the nags.

We BBQ'd ourselves in the sun and ate snags on white bread, chook, coleslaw and a chockie cake. Around us the great Aussie tradition of flashing your brown-eye from bus and car windows was upheld and glasses of frozen Windex were offered to the kids in order for them to wreak havoc in the bushland and adjoining vineyards.

Men dressed in frocks carried balls and chains and blow up dolls. The hen parties had a combined foot race on the course and the best smelling BBQ seemed to be laid on for a bunch of serious Chinese punters who had themselves a marquee too.

Ya gotta love the Aussie spirit.