Bank Holiday Monday morning

I don't think it has stopped raining all night!  The ground is absolutely soaked, the wind is almost howling and it does feel unseasonably cold, but let's be grateful for the large amounts of rain, given the official drought and hosepipe ban that still exists almost everywhere (but not here, surprisingly enough).

Yesterday was grand.  I haven't processed the photos yet but will post a few when I have.  We had a lot of fun and there was a feeling of 'triumph over adversity' which fitted well with the reason for the celebration.  OK, so rain - hardly a danger, but even so . . .  :0)))  I flaked out early (typical) and came in so I am extremely grateful to DD who went out and did my share of the clearing up at the end before she and DG went home.  Looking out now, there's just a few tables, the gazebos and the bunting, flags and balloons to clear away.  Even the ground has been swept and cleared of residual rubbish.  Well done, fellow witches!

(edited an hour and a half later:  in the cold light of day the ground wasn't so spick and span as I thought, but it is now.  I feel I've done my bit towards the clearing up now rather than being a slacker!)

Well, I have a few portions of coronation chicken left over.  I shall have some on lettuce in a salad, as convention states, and the rest could be zizzed into a dip.  I think it would be nice with hot toast and quite warming too.  As the evening barbecue was a bit of a washout, I have rather a lot of sausages and burgers that need either cooking and eating or freezing (they were not frozen previously, thank goodness,  Given that I bought some mince to make lasagne, I think that's me set up for meat for the next week or so.  I quite fancy a sausage meatball casserole!  Must make sure my stocks of chopped tomatoes are high enough!

Apart from sorting out the aftermath of yesterday and a bit of tidying, I intend to do not a lot else today.  Resting, relaxing, sleeping, knitting, watching rubbish TV . . . sounds good right now.

This is actually a photo of a paper plate.  I, always the teacher, looked at it and thought 'useful background picture for a display or display lettering here' and promptly snapped it!  It hasn't been edited so what you see . . . etc.

Sunday around midday-ish

Well, we're pushing on through despite the dampness.  The rain has stopped (fingers crossed) and people are starting to arrive.  Sadly, the other celebration (a picnic on the field) has been cancelled:  We started organising ours before we knew about the alternative and we had booked the bouncy castle, etc, so we couldn't join in with them.
The coronation chicken vol au vents are made, as are the cheese biscuits.  The drink is chilling and the crisps are ready.  Bring it on!

I remember the Silver Jubilee.  We'd not all that long moved into our first house.  A teaching friend who lived along the same road got me involved with the planning 'committee' and a very good time was had by all.  Mind you, given that it was for a whole street, there was a lot more organising including games for the children, a buffet and a disco/barbecue in the evening.  The weather stayed fine and it was a great way to get to know a lot of people very quickly.  I didn't have children at the time and husband was on duty at the hospital so it could have been a lonely day but wasn't!  Fond memories.

Friday morning

Oh, the joys of the internet and the WWW.

Yesterday, my children were most indignant.  They didn't get to sing Rule Britannia and (which I suspect was the real attraction) wave their flags about madly in the chorus.  Never mind that they did a whole load of other flag waving, it wasn't R B.  So when we got back into the bay I went into youtube and found several clips of the Last Night of the Proms, selected a Rule Britannia and off we went.  My, they did enjoy themselves!  The soloist was jolly good and the children listened attentively to her singing the verses before letting rip!

And so Jubilee Week is over!  The next 'special' is Olympic Week at the end of June.  Should be a whole bundle of fun!

Tuesday

As I said yesterday, it was very red, white and blue.  The bay now has home - I mean school - made bunting and appropriately coloured paperchains covering the more mundane displays and it looks very merry and British (and a lot better from a distance!).  They learned the chorus of Rule Britannia and the first verse of God Save the Queen.  They wrote about what they knew about the queen and seemed very knowledeable if a trifle stereotyped.  They learned about how the union flag is put together from three national flags and then coloured a flag properly to stick on a stick (only way to describe it) for Thursday's celebrations.
And they wrote their diaries (have to do SOME 'proper' work this week)

Today is sort of proper work.  A Jack and the Beanstalk dvd, discussing characters and scenes, some nice practical maths based on measures and recording results pictorially and . . .  making hats/crowns for Thursday!  Well, I did say 'sort of'.

I wish I had taken some photos of the decorations but I didn't, so here's another from the garden instead.