January 26th, as it shall shortly be in these parts, is Australia Day.

‘Tis traditionally a day for drinking copious quantities of what the locals quaintly call ‘beer’ and burning assorted meats to buggery on the barbecue.

I have experience with this last requirement for true-blue, dinky-di Aussie-dom:

The outcome was not exactly a culinary triumph that particular year:

The good news this year for food-lovers is this:

That’s the current weather over Sydney. Blue is rain; the darker, the wetter. Yellow is sheets of it. To switch metaphors, the short story is that it’s bucketing down, and likely to stay that way for the rest of the week, apparently. As my old school fête used to say: Indoors if wet!

The upside is that I won’t have to share my food with such native inhabitants of these shores as:

…or, worse:

(for she is venomous).

But I may still have to share my cups of tea with others:

So, when I tuck into my bonza lamb roast indoors, I’ll not be battling flies or arachnids just for once and can therefore wish you all a happy Australia Day and mean it.