Saturday, February 6, 2016

Beached As, Bro

Today is Waitangi Day (aka New Zealand Day) so as I made a card for Australia Day (I'm both a Kiwi and an Aussie), I was naturally obligated to make one for Waitangi Day as well. And by obligated I mean I would never hear the end of it from my Aussie sister-in-law if I didn't! Lol.

The theme I chose is from a little cartoon series called Beached As, which is about a blue whale that finds itself beached on a shore somewhere in New Zealand and then meets various birdlife and sea life creatures. It was actually created by some Aussies and poked a little bit of fun (read tons of fun) at the Kiwi accent, but it was immensely popular both in New Zealand and in Australia. The first creature the whale meets is a pelican, which I assume was a humorous dig from the Aussie writers as the only pelicans found in NZ (and there's only been a couple of dozen over the centuries) are ones that flew over from Australia! The pelican realises the whale must be hungry and offers him a potato chip (crisp). However, the NZ accent has a flat vowel sound, so to Aussies an 'i' sounds like a 'u' and the word chip becomes chup. Get it? Good.

So, here's my card.


I thought there was also a cute parallel with my own situation - ie being a Kiwi who has lived in Australia for going on 19 years, I guessed I'm kind of 'beached' here!

The (semi) nautical theme of the card ties in beautifully with our Waitangi Day dinner (coz I'm clever that way) - we're having dishes that originated or were very commonplace in NZ when I lived there and all feature seafood. Salmon dip, marinated mussels, smoked trout and seafood chowder (with smoked fish fillets all the way from across the ditch). Dessert was a bit of a problem for the theme - I'm making marshmallow surprise (click HERE for the recipe) - until I thought of a unique way to help it fit in: to accompany the dessert will be a chocolate fish! Hahaha, yes, I crack myself up sometimes (I know - small things amuse small minds). In case you're not aware, a chocolate fish is marshmallow covered in chocolate and shaped like - yep, you guessed it - a fish. Here's a pic:


Thank you, thank you, you may now all bow down in salaam to the genius that is my brain. (Peers into the blogosphere) Hmmm, I don't see much bowing going on. Ah well - wanna chup, bro?

Thanks for stopping by. Have a good Waitangi Day!

Cheers
Kez

1 comment:

Monique said...

Kez this is just brilliant. I love the "Beached As" when it came out and having just had a trip to NZ where I got to try my first chocolate fish (yummo) this card and your post resonated with me. Your homeland is just beautiful and I can appreciate you feeling "beached as" in Australia.