My Australia Day Wish

I woke up this morning later than the 6am usual weekday start thanks to the Australia Day public holiday. I started to think what Australia Day meant to me. It's a day off. I don't do anything special. In fact, I relax. Years and years ago I might have spent the day around the city, on Sydney Harbour, hanging out with friends in cafes etc but now I just like lounging around. It's not a celebration for me. Well, apart from having the day off work. One must always celebrate that!!

I'm not being unpatriotic when I say that. I am actually proud to be Australian. In fact, I wish people would pronounce the country name correctly. Aus-tra-lia. It's not Aushtraylia or Austraya. It bugs me immensely that sports commentators in particular - yes, Warnie I am referring to you - say the word in such an ocker way, it sounds ridiculous. And walk around the streets. You hear others say it. Awshtraya. 'stralia. We are so incredibly lazy with our speech.

Yes I'm guilty sometimes of dropping the "g" at the end of a verb like "walkin" or "talkin" but that's when I'm tired and don't feel like pronouncing the words correctly. But Awshtraya is not how you say our country's name day in and day out. It's Australia. Pronounce the "t" people and the "lia". Don't get lazy every single day.

It's our country. Say the name proudly. And correctly. It's my one wish for this Australia Day.

Another blog? Why not!

I can't remember what the trigger was to create another blog.  I never thought I'd blog, let alone maintain several sites.  The first one was an ebook blog.  It was originally meant to track my own responses to reading ebooks, both on a computer and later on a device.  I've worked in the publishing industry for 21 years and have talked fluent "e" for over eight years now, but the blog was more for me.  As it turns out, it's hard to separate the professional and the personal and the blog became more about ebooks in an industry sense, while trying to champion the cause of the consumer.

Then I started the Love of Venice blogspot.  That was to record the fourth trip to La Serenissima.  I still have plans to extend it and put in tourist tips, restaurant recommendations, site-seeing ideas etcetera.. afterall the last trip was a full month.  We love Venice and many of our friends see us moving there, but not yet.  Need to learn Italian (Venetian dialect) and work out exactly how we can afford to live there.  Maybe we'll move part-time in our later years.  Who knows?  It's a dream.



And now a general ramble.  Who knows what I'll share here.  My loves - music, books, photography, history, travel.  And maybe general news items.  It is a Ramble site so I will have to feel strongly about something to document and share my thoughts and feelings on an issue.  Will anyone read it?  Who knows!  But part of me doesn't care.  It's about the discipline of writing and getting back into the habit of putting my thoughts down somewhere.  Feel free to comment on any item.  It's always nice knowing someone, somewhere reads me.