Canada celebrates 149 years as a country today. My Dad would have celebrated 76. It's always a bittersweet day for that reason. He chose to bring us here from the U.K. when I was just four; he left his young family back home for a few months so that he could secure a job and a place to live, then he brought us over on a BOAC plane; my little sister was still young enough to travel as a baby, on my mother's lap. This is us with our cousins, on my gran's doorstep, the day we left for our new home in Canada:

I'm grateful for the life he made for us here, and the one I have been able to make for myself. Canada isn't perfect (I've never come to terms with the snow and the cold) but it's a pretty nice place to be in terms of culture, politics, geography, and opportunities (not necessarily in that order). I don't think my parents ever regretted taking that enormous step of emigration, and Canada allowed them to retain a connection to their British roots. And today is a holiday to enjoy this country for what it is, and who it makes us.

The fireworks below are a composite; we're deep in drought at the moment, and the forest fire risk is too high for such activities. But the landscape below is 100% real, 100% Canadian and 100% home.

Happy Canada Day.