Queen Victoria's birthday bust

Meandering along Bloor Street and our back lane this warm and sunny 24th of May holiday, I was shocked and outraged by the absence of any apparent celebration of Queen Victoria's
190th birthday other than shut shops on Bloor.

   There was a moment or so after returning home, I thought that maybe some jolly little-kids yammering nearby was a children's marking of Victoria's birthday.

   That seemed so when two of the little scamps came knocking on our front door--right beside the verandah window where I had placed a print of the portrait by American artist Thomas Sully of the pretty, teen-aged Queen Victoria.

   (She posed for Sully during the  early months of her  64-year year reign [1837-1901], which began with the death of her Uncle William IV on June 20, 1837, just 27 days after her 18th birthday.)

    But, no, the kids paid no attention to the picture.

    They were asking for access to our back yard to retrieve a frisbee which, it turned out, had been playing no part whatsoever in a celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday when one of the kids had sent it sailing over two fences into our yard.

    I was inclined to scold them and refuse to let them regain their frisbee.

    But then I thought: What-the-Heck. I escorted them into our yard to fetch their frisbee, then presented them with one of our ancient frisbees as well as some almost-as-old-as-Victoria tennis balls. 

   --cm 24-5-10

[picture from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website]