A slight change in wording...

I heard during the week that the Girl Guide Association of Australia has decided to update the Guide promise by removing references to God and the Queen. Instead, a Guide will now pledge to be "true to myself and to develop my beliefs," presumably to reflect the range of religious and cultural beliefs which exist in current Australian society.

One thing most people in my life now probably don't know about me is that I was a Girl Guide once, back in the 1980s when God and the Queen were still in favour. I went right through from Brownies to Guides and then on to Ranger Guides and Rangers. I even did all the badges I needed to become a Queen's Guide when I was in the Ranger section. It involved a pretty hefty chunk of community service activities.

So I was a bit concerned that the bit about "helping other people" that was also a key part of our promise might have been ditched along with God and the Queen. Fortunately, it hasn't been. The pillar of community service remains.

I am disappointed to see God relegated to the sideline though. And I think the timing of removing the Queen could have been better too. That could have waited until the Diamond Jubilee year was over.

And I'm unconvinced by the words "true to myself." True to my (sinful, selfish) self? I think the words are fairly meaningless. It implies a view in which societal, moral or ethical (not to mention Biblical) standards don't really matter much. As long as you're happy with yourself, that's all that matters.

It all just sounds a bit too inward-looking.

Malory Towers trivia

Simone has a great quiz up on Enid Blyton's Malory Towers series. Test yourself here.

I knew almost all of the answers without having to check the books. I still re-read them every couple of years. I liked her St Clare's series too, but not quite as much as MT.

Revisiting old TV shows and sharing the lighthouse love

The kids spent some of this afternoon watching episodes of Round the Twist on DVD. We have made it about halfway through Series 1.

This is a show I remember from my younger days. The first series was made in 1989 so I was too old to be watching it in first year University, but I remember it being on TV, presumably because my younger brothers may have been watching. Apparently a further three series were made over a period of about ten years, with lots of recasting required. And they are based on books written by the prolific Australian author Paul Jennings, which of course we will now be hunting down at the library.

Although they are a bit frightened of ghosts, which have featured quite heavily so far, the boys have been enjoying it. Mostly the ghosts turn out to be friendly, so we no longer have the two of them leaving the room or quivering with fear whenever a ghost turns up in the story.

For me (and Liam, who also likes lighthouses), the coolest thing about this series is that the family live in a lighthouse, the one in the above picture. It's located at Split Point, along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. One day we will drive that road to see all the lighthouses along it. In the meantime we'll just continue watching Round the Twist so we can get our fix.

No time for blogging...

Busy busy busy writing this lecture for the Uni students. Done now, I think. I'm a perfectionist so I'm sure I will see lots more possibilities for improvement but good enough to run with as it is I think.

I have a photo of Rosie's cool new/recycled furniture that I want to post but haven't had time to get it off the camera yet.

We had a surprise birthday party for Chris' Mum yesterday at Bribie Island, great fun, lots of happy snaps taken but as with the furniture photo they still need to come off the camera.

Being busy is good in some ways, haven't had much time to sit and think about Liam's operation on Wednesday. Chris is going to Brisbane with him, I am staying home with the other two and keeping things (relatively) normal here.

And in a totally unrelated item of news, I saw an icon from my childhood this afternoon as we were driving to Fingal Beach to take some photos in the last of the afternoon light...a Soft Serve/Mr Whippy van! It was even playing Greensleeves!