Lest We Forget

*The crowd of early risers*

I joined hundreds of others this Saturday in braving the wee hours of the morning for the Anzac Day Ceremony. It was held in Hyde Park Corner at the Australian War Memorial, so from my place that meant catching two night buses. Unfortunately I slept through my alarms and woke up late!! Had to haul arse to the bus and hope the roads were quiet... Turns out I made it in record time!! 

It was really great to see so many Aussies and Kiwis together to pay tribute to the Anzac's. I honestly didn't expect there to be so many people. I think one of the amazing things about being overseas is the comradery that you feel when you are around people from home. For all the crap we give each other, at the end of the day, everyone puts the pettiness aside to help each other out. And I think that is why I and so many others had turned out to honour the Anzac spirit.

You see, for me, I don't have any ancestors from Australia, my family comes from France and New Zealand. So Anzac day was not something we really acknowledged in our household. However we had a great family friend who took it upon himself to teach me about it and take me every year to the Dawn Service in town.  Even after he passed away I made sure I went every year (bar one year in Brisbane) and did my best to spread to Anzac story.

In the true spirit of the Anzac's I went on a baking spree and cooked up a storm of Anzac biscuits. 4 batches with 4 recipes because I wasn't sure which ones were the best!!! To be honest with you, I was very surprised by the coconut element in the ingredients list. I couldn't remember the coconut being a predominant flavour in the old Anzac biscuit but it turns out its very important!! MMMMmmm Tasty. 

As you can imagine with 4 batches of biscuits I had a lot to go around, so I took it upon myself to spread the ANZAC spirit amongst my customers. All Aussies got some to take home and everyone else had one to try and a run down on how the biscuit came to be. 

All in all it was a great morning, made me miss home, made me proud of my friends who have or are serving currently in peace missions around the world, and more than anything reminded how proud I am to be an Australian. 

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old,

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them."

*Sunrise on Anzac Day*