ANZAC day

ANZAC day was always important.
Mum (Granny) used to always take us along to the service at Lenah Valley RSL.  We kids especially loved eating the scones in the hall after the march and service.  Granny would also try to get to the Dawn service at the Hobart Cenotaph whenever she could.
It became more important to me when I started serving as a musician in the reserve Navy band.  The last ANZAC march I did in uniform, I was pregnant with Bethany, playing side-drum.  I was fine until the marching stopped, and I had to stand at attention.  Whoa, some blood pressure please!  I had to make the "fall out or fall down" choice.  I was worried that landing on the drum might hurt the baby, so I neatly excused myself and went a little way off to sit down.

ANZAC day marks Bethany's half-birthday.  So Happy seven and a half gorgeous girl.  The photo shows Beth in her new dress having ice-cream after church.  I had to drag them all away from the ice cream and race home to watch Damien on television: the ABC broadcast the ANZAC cove dawn service live.  We only caught the last half, but there was heaps of footage of Damien (conveniently seated near the wreath laying area) and also some good shots of other people who have served locally.  Shorty (an old Bandmaster) played the last post.  I wish I had recorded the whole thing.

I imagine that ANZAC day will be even more important to our family now that Damien has participated in such a profound way.  Apparently many people stayed all night on site in preparation for the dawn service, so the band pulled an all-nighter playing appropriate music to the crowd.  With 2 major performances today, following little or no sleep I am sure Damien must be completely exhausted. We were able to watch (and record) all of the broadcast of the later Lone Pine service, but didn't see very much of Damien in that one.

After watching the first ceremony (while Hannah napped) I whipped up a batch of ANZAC biscuit dough, gave the big girls an empty tray each and had them shape the biscuit balls.  I didn't burn them this year (Hooray!) but they were a little closely spaced (my fault probably, for putting a few extra ones on Leila's tray).  They will go into lunches this week.  Yum!  It is still kind of weird not having to double or triple the recipe like I did for my brothers and sisters back when I was a kid.

We are really looking forward to having Damien home again on Saturday.  I miss him most of all when I see him on Skype or read his text messages on my mobile phone.  Three weeks is a long time.