We have a statutory holiday on Monday meaning that it is mandatory and no one can work (except those having a big sale!). It is the celebration of Queen Elizabeth's birthday. I think she will be 87 this celebration. But the very interesting thing about this celebration is that it is not really her birthday! She was born on 21 April but since that is early spring in England and usually cool and rainy in the northern hemishere she moved it to June so it would be a nice celebration and people would look forward to having a nice day in the sun. Now how is that for a royal proclamation?
We here in New Zealand are a constitutional monarchy which means she is our Queen. She is Queen of the Realm and all her other Realms and that includes us and lots of other places although she really has nothing to do at all with NZ or the government here. Her face does appear on our coins. It was decided years ago that her official birthday celebration would be the first Monday in June. This is a big day here because it is the official start of the ski season, mainly on the South Island. There are many sales at the malls tomorrow. We might even check a few out.
The thing that makes this such a funny celebration is that all the countries in her realm get to pick the day that they will celebrate it. Talk about a birthday going on forever. In parts of Australia it is the second Monday in June while in Westeren Australia it is the first Monday. In Perth it is either the last Monday in September or the first Monday in October. In Canada it is now the Monday before 25 May. In 2012 in Fiji it was announced that they would no longer celebrate the birthday because in 1987 Fiji became independent of the UK but when the cancellation was announced there was a great protest and many petitions were signed and forwarded to the government because some people thought they should continue to have a party for her. Oh get a life people!
In Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands it is celebrated the second Monday in June. In Bermuda it was abolished in 2009 while in the Falkland Islands it is in October because June is the middle of the fall and winter like here since they are part of the southern hemisphere.
In all honesty, I knew that the UK was big and all but I never knew that Fiji and Solomons were or had been part of it all. Goes to show either how good/poor my geography eduation was or how much I have forgotten over all these years of living. Either way, this was a nice blog for me.
We should all have cake!
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