Today is a special day for me. A lot of you out there know me as Sonny from Australia and go with the natural assumption that I am in fact Australian. I feel very much the ocker in me that makes me Australian, but the fact is , my family migrated to Australia from Belgium back in the 70's, and have been travelling on a Belgium passport for these past few decades with a permanent Australian resident visa, wanting to get the Australian citizenship, but then I would have lost my Belgium passport ( which, let's be honest is handy when you travel to Europe a lot, and one must not loose/forget their heritage) So a few years ago, the Belgium government, noting that Belgium was one of the last European countries not allowing it citizens to have dual citizenship, changed that law, and I started the long ( and rightly so) process of becoming an Australian Citizen So me, happy as larry. Special day, and even more so , as the ceremony is held on the northern beaches where I grew up I taking my Australian Oath, up to get my Australian native and my certificate I get to shake hands with Bronwynn Bishop, was a bit hesitant at first about this , as I do not agree with her policies, but today is not about politics, and we're all smiling and now shake hands with the mayor Harvey Rose So here I am , proud as punch, with Rob Stokes, Bronwyn Bishop and Harvey Rose and now we all sing the national anthem We just had to introduce Kevin, I mean Evan , to the opposition, see-ing Evan has such a strong interest in politics, and look how tall Jacqui is poli in the making :-) If you haven't already click here to see the video and you'll see why Patty has coined the term Belgralian, and now I am officially one Big day, and Jacqui was feeling a bit down that she hadn't done a bit more to mark this special day, like a BBQ where we could char sausages and drink VB , or eat pavlova cake, she was just winding me up As she made a sign for me in the "bends" For those of you not familiar, there is really only one road to Avalon ( ok ok , you can go the long way around the back of newport, but it would take a lot longer ) and it is a very bendy road, and for years, signs have been posted ( almost always mysteriously over night ) and yes, Jacqui has sneakily put up a sign after picking up the kids from school. Thanks Jacs, what a special day.
Interestingly for more on the bends, read this, and on this blog, you can see some pics of signs that have been posted on the bends.
And then naturally for a better editorial take on the whole day, where's my rider