Here we are at the first day of September. Summer has ended (although it’s rather sunshine-y at Gidday HQ today) and Autumn will start its annual pilgrimage across the northern hemisphere, creeping in with nippy mornings and shorter days. The leaves will…

…hang on. Stop right there. This is not meant to be a post about Autumn!

Take 2:

Here we are at the first day of September. And today is Father’s Day in Australia.

So in honour of celebrating the man that is my Dad and warm the cockles of your hearts, I though it was time to do a little roasting….Gidday-style.

Let’s start at…well, the start.  Here’s where it all began for us…

There’s an ‘okay now what do I do with this?’ look here.

But soon he got into the swing of things…blowing out candles (an important life skill even today)…

…and giving fatherly advice (while I practise my ‘whatever’ look).

The decades flashed by and a few years ago, Dad swapped the city for a life roaming around the countryside.

This was taken in New Zealand but I have seen many a similar picture of Dad-and-Stepmum in Down Under’s very own great outdoors.

His days now consist of travelling to outback properties and national parks around Australia, ‘homestead-sitting’, painting, mending fences – generally lending a hand wherever needed – and visiting family and friends, whether they may be other itinerants or those of more fixed abode. Dad even put his new-found construction skills to work at Christmas, stepping up to the challenge of making this for our Christmas Day host…

…and seemed rather pleased to consider some liquid refreshment after the big unveiling.