O Canada, Our home and native land

Here we are in Canada for our first 'Canada Day' celebration as residents. Many of you will have been to one of our annual Canada Day parties in Cambridge, where we all dressed in red and white and invited any canadians we knew to come over for a BBQ. Now it is our chance to join in someone else's party, and it was a lot of fun.

Nanaimo held a gathering in the big waterfront park, and took the opportunity to open a new section, the Spirit Square. The weather cooperated, the choir sang 'O Canada', speeches were made and a most enormous cake was cut. There were plenty of activities too, Issie and Max got to try kayaking and street hockey - Max showed an aptitude for hockey which he must get from me, obviously, and I can see him chasing a puck or ball around the street or a rink in years to come. Issie turns out to be pretty good at throwing an american football too, but perhaps I'll do my best to steer her towards rugby. She shows talent when it comes to tackling her brother and I reckon American Football just wouldn't be physical enough for her....

I reckon Canada does this national celebration thing pretty well. More evident and patriotic than England's complete apathy to St Georges Day, not as alcoholic as St Patrick's Day and much less jingoistic than the Fourth of July. We fit in well here.