We Are Not Amused

   This is Victoria Day, here in Canada, a national holiday. It has traditionally been "planting weekend" since the danger of frost is now past. It is also the first long weekend of the summer, the one when many cottage owners open their cottage for the season, not to close it again until Thanksgiving weekend in the fall.
   In Canada, the celebration of Victoria Day is observed every year on the Monday before May 25th, as the official celebration of the birthdays of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. Before Victoria Day became a national Holiday in 1901, people had celebrated Empire Day , beginning in the 1890s. Victoria, queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and empress of India, came to the throne after the death of her uncle George IV in 1837 when she was only 18 and ruled until her death in 1901.
   After her death, an Act was passed by the Parliament of Canada establishing a legal holiday on May 24 in each year (or May 25 if May 24 fell on a Sunday) under the name Victoria Day.
An amendment to the Statutes of Canada in 1952 established the celebration of Victoria Day on the Monday preceding May 25. In 1957, Victoria Day was permanently appointed as the Queen's birthday in Canada.
   I don't know that there are too many people in Canada today who are aware of any of the above details, or who would really care about them. For most, it is simply and wonderfully, a day to sleep in late and spend time with family and friends, rather than with the boss.
   Let me leave you with a little snippet of Victoriana trivia. She may not be amused to have this bruited about, but her Royal HIGHNESS regularly took a prescription from court physician Dr JR Reynolds for a cannabis extract that she used for relief of menstrual problems.