Today is Australia Day – a holiday to which I have never in my life paid any attention, other than by happily staying home from work. I thought I’d atone for this neglect by sharing this list – Australian Things to Like!

1. The (possible) kangaroo discovered in a 16th-century Portuguese manuscript.

2. Birds. Lorikeets are my favourite; they’re as full of attitude as they are of colour. I once watched a lorikeet snacking on my back terrace. A giant, oily-and-evilly-glistening currawong (several times the size of the lorikeet) flew down to muscle in. What happened next? The little lorikeet drew itself up to its full height and flashed a look of such fierce and supercilious contempt at the interloper that it ducked and backed away. (The image on the wikipedia page is a pretty good example of the look.)

The willie wagtail isn’t colourful, but it’s as cute as heck. I don’t know why the tail twitches back and forth as it does, but it’s so endearing!

However, I don’t like sulphur-crested cockatoos. These things are basically pirates; they crash through the air bullying other birds out off their nests; they strip bark off trees; they’ll take one bite out of every piece of fruit on the fruit-tree and then spit the rest onto the ground, and their screech has to be heard to be believed.

Meanwhile, if anyone ever calls you a ‘galah’, it’s an insult.

3. The poetry of Judith Wright. Try ‘The Old Prison’, or ‘Bullocky,’ .

4. Opal. Okay, so maybe it can’t cut glass or whatever, but it’s still fascinating, full of a strange blue-green fire.

5. The woman whose conversation I overheard one day in ‘Tapestry Craft.’ She’d just completed a reproduction of the entire Bayeaux Tapestry. The project had taken her twenty years.

6. The Tap Dogs and the Tap Pups. Seriously. Blokes dancing! And even if you don’t enjoy tap that much, I’m sure you can enjoy the serious dose of cuteness toward the end of the piece.