Happy Birthday, Canada!

It's Canada Day, and there are to be fireworks this evening (alas, poor dogs), pancake breakfasts, picnics, a human flag to be made on the lawn of the legislature (if an online news photo is available tomorrow, I'll post one). Most intriguingly, some "secret" buildings around Victoria are to be open to the public today for the first time, with guided tours - a taoist temple (I didn't know we had one!), a masonic hall (I did know we had one of those, but not that it had a ceiling decorated with the night sky of very specific astronomical formulation), secret vaults under the cathedral, etc etc... I may venture out to one or two of those if I can rouse the energy. It's a startlingly beautiful day - one of those clear, bright, hot but not humid days that we can have in mid summer in BC. Perfect.

I think I'll largely resist the tempatation to go all philosophical and "what Canada means to me." I love Canada. I love England, too, but for different reasons. I think I am English in blood and bone, but Canadian in spirit, and I think, now, I like having feet on both sides of the world. I'm very lucky.

Best Canadian fact of the day?

.03 percent of all car accidents in Canada involve a moose.