THE QUEEN'S DIAMOND JUBILLEE.

2012 is a big year for London! The Queen's Diamond Jubilee will be closely followed by the Olympics and the Paralympics.

As the Jubilee approached, the weather started to improve. The previous weekend and the 10 days or so before that had been excellent, as the BBC weather forecasts below show. It was all reminiscent of Spring 2011 with wonderful weather.

Unfortunately, as the Jubilee weekend drew closer the weather turned and has continued to do so (at the time of publishing this on 12 June there had been widespread flooding across the country with the threat of more to come). Unfortunately it may well be that those 10 days end up being the sum total of summer 2012! 

People started to get excited, with jubilee parties planned across the country. William's school put on a Jubilee tea party on the last day before half term holiday to which the "Queen" put in an appearance!

The day of the flotilla was forecast for days before to be 10 or 11 degrees and driving rain. Not just rain but DRIVING rain! The day before the flotilla, we decided to go in to have a look at the preparations and some of the moored boats, just in case the actual day was too abysmal. We also knew that Sally would not be able to go in and stand for hours midst all the crowds.

We took the tube to Sloane square and a bus down to Battersea Park where the bunting was all up and tv crews practising for the next day.  We checked out where the crowd would gather (by way of limited tickets) to see the flotilla pass and walked along the Thames to Albert Bridge where the Queen and Royal party would join the royal barge, Spirit of Chartwell.  There were a few boats gathered, but no royal barge, but the bridge was certainly looking spruced up! 

From there we took a bus to Victoria Station and a tube to Tower Hill so we could walk across Tower Bridge to see where the flotilla would end.  Sal had done her dash by then, so we postponed the planned lunch at Borough Market and headed home.

The day before the Jubilee flotilla - on Albert Bridge

Victoria Station.

Mark decided that we should acknowledge the occasion with a bit of bunting. We were the first and pretty much only house in the street to 'bunt up'. The kids were unimpressed though and would not salute until Mark added the Australian flag. Even then they wouldn't salute and the car flags mysteriously ...'fell off'.

Sally farewells Mark, Aisha and William
 going to the summer flotilla.....
in ski gear.

Mark and the kids headed in on the Saturday morning expecting to be rained on. They were rugged up in ski gear with thermals underneath and had umbrellas. As with the wedding, they were able to find a pretty good spot and the kids were able to wheedle their way to the front of the barrier by Waterloo bridge.  

Sally kept in touch by mobile while watching the events on tv from the comfort of the sofa !  She was also in touch with friends on Blackfriar's Bridge (who watched someone carted away with hypothermia) and a friend who had responsibility for looking after the Australian surf lifesaver crews and our Governor General.

After 3 hours of waiting the flotilla came past. It was all pretty impressive, especially the royal barge which was rather big.

Although the forecast was dire, even as we left home, it ended up raining only as the last of the boats sailed past where we were. It certainly did pour for quite some time and a lot of people got very wet, but not us. The crowds at the tube stations, not great as we left, grew steadily worse after we had arrived home.

                                            

The next two days of celebration were also supposed to be equally bad weather but did not turn out that way. We decided to stay at home though and watch it on the TV, along with most of the country, then finished the weekend off with a lovely English cream tea with neighbours!

The next post will be in a few days and will try to get things up to date.