Diamond Jubilee Weekend

Uncle Tony and Aunty Ingrid returned safely on Friday, and we spent Saturday with them hearing about their trip to Snowdonia.  It sounds lovely, and they had some beautiful photos.  We already had North Wales on our (very flexible) to see list, but who knows when we will be able to fit it in.

On Sunday we returned to Mark and Paula’s place to sort a few bits and pieces out before heading to London.  We had a great trip through, leaving Bristol about 9am and getting to Addlestone before 11am.  Mark and Paula took us along to their local garden centre (which is more like a farmlet really, and they have a pick-your-own berries section too) which was having a Jubilee “Hog Roast”.  This was great – it threatened to drizzle now and then but stayed mostly dry, and the spit roast pig in a bun (with apple sauce and stuffing) was delicious.  Siobhan and Emma also enjoyed sharing a bowl of fresh strawberries and cream.  Emma looked very beautiful after a visit to the face-painting stall, and also got to hold a lovely barn owl briefly. 

After the owl visit, Emma insisted that we had ice-cream – she told us that the garden centre had the best ice-cream.  Well, we won’t dispute that – we all enjoyed a very delicious ice-cream, and as an illustration of how tired Alice was, Mark got to enjoy all of his by himself.  This is apparently quite rare as Alice can usually hoover up one of these kiddy ice creams in record time.

It was a good thing that we had walked to this hog roast event, as after watching the Thames River Pageant on the TV, the day concluded with an equally delicious roast beef dinner at Sue’s house – thanks everyone for a lovely Jubilee Sunday.

On Monday morning we were off to Nick and Fleur’s place in Hampstead.  Since the Queen is celebrating 60 years on the throne, the British got an extra bank holiday tacked on to Queen’s Birthday weekend.  This made it an ideal time to visit as both Fleur and Nick had Monday and Tuesday off work.  Nick had Wednesday too, and on both Wednesday and Thursday Grant was meeting with people about job prospects. 

We got going a bit later than planned, but made it across London on the train easily and reached the flat in Hampstead by lunchtime.  The plan for the evening was to meet some other friends at the pub before going to Golder’s Green to watch Jubilee fireworks and the lighting of a special beacon.  The weather had completely cleared, although it was quite chilly, so the walk across the Heath was lovely.  The fireworks were not until about 9.45 (when it would be dark enough!) but they were great.  We had a superb view, and were so close that many of them seemed to be going off right above us.  Sadly the beacon malfunctioned, and after several failed countdowns they instead released a small floating light as a substitute.  We got the best beacon possible on our walk home though – a glorious full moon.

On Tuesday, the final Jubilee event was the Queen’s carriage procession from Westminster along the Mall to Buckingham Palace.  We had not originally planned to try seeing this (we are not overly fond of crowds), but it was to now include the air force fly-over that had had to be cancelled on Sunday due to bad weather.   Nick persuaded us to head into the city after all, and we made a morning of it, running some errands before getting close to the Mall just before 1pm.  Her Majesty was due to ride her carriage at around 3pm – but already there was no getting close enough to actually see her.  We had left our run too late.  So we found a pub that had the procession showing on the big screen (on the ground floor of New Zealand House in fact), and settled in for a couple of hours.  We still wanted to see that fly-over.  It proved to be worth the wait.  We headed out into Trafalgar Square a few minutes before the planes were due.  It wasn’t raining too badly and we had our coats.  The first three planes were war planes, and quite neat.  The next formation was led by a Lancaster bomber – it was an impressive sight.  Finally a perfect formation of the Red Arrow jets went over, with their jet streams of red, white and blue.  It was a beautiful tribute, and so cool to see how many people had turned out in (let’s face it) pretty poor weather to celebrate with their Queen.  We headed home via Fortnum & Mason’s – a gorgeous emporium – and got home again without getting too soaked.

Fleur had to go to work on Wednesday but Nick took us to see some of the sights.  We caught the overground train through to Greenwich which is where some of the Olympics will be held.  We saw the gymnastics stadium and the swimming venue from the outside.  We then headed down to the Thames, and walked under it through the pedestrian tunnel.  This brought us out by the old Royal Naval College.  It was also the site of one of Henry VIII’s palaces.  The Royal Naval College was originally built as a place for the old and infirm sailors who had finished their naval service.  Over the years its use has changed with it more recently being used as the training college for all officers above sub-lieutenant.

Apart from being a cool old stone building, it also houses the Painted Hall.  This is England’s Sistine Chapel, painted by James Thornhill, an English artist.  It is a huge hall with massive paintings on the ceilings and walls of the different spaces.

After this we headed up the hill towards the Greenwich museum where the time ball and the meridian line are.  On the way up the hill we went past where the Olympic equestrian events are going to be held.  The show-jumping arena was well on its way to being finished, although it is probably good that they have a month or so to get it finished.  We got to see the time ball and the meridian line, but didn’t go into the museum as we were running out of time as we had arranged to meet Fleur for lunch.  We headed back to Canary Wharf and rescued Fleur from work and had sushi.  After we had lunch, we then travelled to Austin Friars so that I could meet up with a recruitment consultant.  He had helped both Nick and Fleur find work when they came to the UK.  It was good talking to him and he had a few suggestions that I’m sure will be helpful.

Meanwhile, Nick had been thinking about the current recruitment process that his work was currently in the middle of undertaking, and whether there might have been a role there that would interest me.  We discussed this a bit, and Nick suggested that it would be a good idea for me to meet another of his colleagues to give me a better appreciation for what they do.  Fleur had also been busy arranging for Siobhan to meet a friend of hers who is head of Maths in a school in London.  So Thursday was spent going in to the city centre for Grant to meet Nick and his colleague and then Siobhan meeting Fleur’s friend in Camden town on the way home to Nick & Fleur’s.  We were then allowed to cook dinner for them – a real token given all of the things that Nick & Fleur arranged for us.