Editorial: Queen's Birthday weather is cold comfort

Queen Elizabeth II turned 93 this year. Photo / Getty

Editorial

EDITORIAL:

All due respect Ma'am, but this wintry public holiday in the Antipodeas is wearing a little thin.

We've adapted our sweltering Christmases into summer rituals, despite finding out our Lord was more likely born somewhether between mid September and early October. Given there's no copy of His birth certificate to be found (yes, we've checked that shoebox on the back of the wardrobe shelf) we can accept His celebration being moved to fit loosely with the Northern Hemisphere's winter solstice.

After all, we looked online and found what appears to be your birth certificate on Pinterest, which alleges you were born in April.

But following the Far, Far North's lead on Queen's Birthday, once again as we are hunkered down in the dreadful blast of winter's first violent sneezes, is taking a toll on our tolerance. We realise the date of Your Majesty's drawing breath is generally set throughout the Kingdom around the end of May or start of June to coincide with a higher likelihood of fine weather in the Northern Hemisphere for outdoor ceremonies.

But our outdoor ceremonies around this time of the annus horribilis are more likely to evince dashing across the shoe-soaking, sodden grass of the Auckland Domain to shiver in front of dinosaur bones in the War Memorial Museum than sipping Earl Grey under pastel parasols on the palace lawn.

Visitors enjoying a walk in the Auckland Domain. Photo / Jason Oxenham.

It would be quite the annus mirabilis if we could shift Your Royal Highness' miraculous arrival upon our humblist terra firma to the first day of Spring, September 23 - serendipitously occurring this year on a Monday.

After all, we looked online and found what appears to be your birth certificate on Pinterest, which alleges you were born in April. We have a stack of Easter and Anzac holidays then but September here is when your favourite flower, the primrose, comes out. Ma'am?