Australia Day WOW

This wombat is appliqued on a pyjama top, when I made the pyjamas in a dark grey-blue knit I decided they needed brightening up, hence the applique. I even bravely free-motioned the features - eye and nose - and the grass in two shades of green. I never iron pyjamas (I don't iron many clothes at all) but perhaps this wombat could have been pressed before being immortalised on the interwebs. Too late now!

Today is Australia Day, it's the anniversary of the day when the first fleet of convicts and soldiers set up camp in what was to become Sydney in 1788. While I don't have ancestors in that fleet I know of two who came in 1794 and two more in 1800. That's a long time ago by Australian standards as we are a young country, in terms of European settlement. The indigenous Australians would have us not celebrate as to them it is a day when they were invaded, but no one can turn their back on history. The French were hot on the trail of the British, if the French had arrived first we would all be parlez vous-ing...and who knows if the indigenous folk would have better or worse off under French colonisation? We will never know.

Jennifer