Green day

Stewart's convenience stores were serving ice-cream for a 50c a scoop today to anyone dressed in green.  I expect they were kept busy scooping, this sunny and warm St Patrick's Day.

For the first time since moving here we decided to go and watch the St Patrick's Day parade in Albany.  Downtown was busier than we'd ever seen it, and everyone was dressed in green.  Some went even further and were dressed as leprechauns.

We arrived just in time for the start of the parade, led by Albany's mahogany-stained Mayor Jennings. Behind him came all manner of marching bands and pipers, police honour guards, fire trucks and firefighters, Irish dancers, flag twirlers, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the "Albany Limericks", senior citizens in trams and minibuses, Our Lady of Fatima on top of a truck, more leprechauns and, yes, even St Patrick himself.  We were pleased to see not just Miss Altamont Fair, but also the "alternate Miss Altamont Fair" (Miss Fair and a spare?).

It was not unlike a Memorial Day parade, only greener and less formal.  St Patrick's Day in the US is traditionally celebrated as a drunkfest, and some in the crowd were already limbering up for later.  We headed off soon after the parade finished passing by, to avoid the full debauchery, car-wrecking etc (if last year was anything to go by). But during the time we were there it was a good fun family event, and a day when Irish (and Irish-by-descent, and not-really-Irish-at-all-but-what-the-heck) eyes were shining.