Recent photos from my walk home

The weather is changing recently and the sky is different colours and everything looks a little different every day. Here are some photos I have taken over the past ten days or so.

The weather and us

We in Britain have quite an involved, emotional relationship with the weather. I imagine most countries have a dependence on their weather in some way but as a Brit, the reaction to this year’s weather has amused me lots.

It was cold. Very cold. For a long time. Now I’m not one to moan about the weather, mainly because it’s all over the place so I figure there’s no point being so attached to it as it’s bound to not be doing what you want it to. Also, as a generally quite hot person, I much prefer things to be a little colder so that my body temperature comes out somewhere in the middle! I love going for a walk when it’s cold and I can see my breath. By the time I’ve walked for five minutes, I’ll be really warm anyway.

So this winter, this long never-ending winter, when it was cold for seven months, I did not complain. I prefer swimming outdoors when it’s raining or cold too, because most people don’t like it so they go to the indoor pool. Which leaves the pool empty for little me and I don’t have to get mad because it’s so full and people aren’t following the Swimming Pool Rules. I like the comfiness of wearing a big cuddly coat, which I can only do in extreme cold because I get hot so easily. I also like dragging out the Downstairs Duvet while watching a film in the evening. The winter forces us to be cuddly and to cook hearty warming dishes like beef stews and cottage pies and apple crumbles. All the things, I like.

When the complaining about the cold continued on into May and early June, it became hard to defend my position, especially given that the garden was looking a little sad, none of the trees were bearing fruit and all the bees were dying. I felt sorry for the bees, as I like them. I’m all into the bee scene.

Small talk during the last weeks of this long winter pretty much only consisted of weather-chat. Whilst in work, when a customer entered the shop with their umbrella and their big winter coat and scarf, they would just look at me with a look on their face and we both knew that weather-chat was on the cards. It became unavoidable. And so I made polite small talk about the weather.

“It’s been too long now, hasn’t it?” I would say.

“I’m still wearing my winter coat, in June!” I moaned.

“Snow?! In May! Unbelievable!” I exclaimed, all the while thinking that I didn’t mind it so much.

When I got up first thing, dressed in my jarmies, and the cold hit me, I’d grumble a bit but it was nothing a cup of tea couldn’t handle.

And then it warmed up. We stopped moaning about the cold and rain and the sun shone. My goodness, did it shine!

And we, the British, we were excited! Brilliant! We sat out in parks and ate icecreams and acted like we were on holiday. We loved it!

Me? I was sweaty and uncomfortable. I was not really having fun. My new job required a half an hour walk and not very much shade along the way. So I arrive at work feeling gross. So I have to take extra clothes to change into. But then I work all day and get hot and disgusting. But I don’t have any more clothes to change into. So my walk home is in already sweaty disgusting clothes. Then I get hot on the walk home and by the time I arrive home, I’m just a mess. It doesn’t make for a very attractive Laura.

And then the weather got really really hot. Too hot. We spent a lot of time inside, hiding from it. We moaned. Yes, we moaned. Because it was too hot.

This time I joined in. I’m not mad for hot weather anyway, as you’ve guessed, so my moaning was genuine.

Then there were thunderstorms so we rejoiced! Ah, what a relief from this overwhelming heat! Thank GOODness! Phew!

Then we saw the forecast for this weekend said there are going to be more storms and rain… And guess what happened?

We moaned. We moaned because we had a weekend away at the coast planned and a birthday party outside down by the river and the damn rain had spoiled it all! Fist-shaking and despairing came into play. And we lamented the awful British weather again!

Are you keeping up with this? I’m not sure I am. Let’s go from the top.

1. It was cold. We moaned.
2. It was hot. We rejoiced.
3. It got hotter. We moaned.
4. It was stormy. We rejoiced.
5. More rain was forecast. We moaned.

Poor weather. When we seem happy about something, he does more of the same and then we moan!

(I personally, am always moaning about extreme heat. I think I was an Arctic explorer in a previous life.)

Vegetable chat

Pretext to this conversation = I have been foraging once. Once.

This is a conversation I had with some of the other volunteers yesterday at Ham House.

Volunteer 1: “Oo, this asparagus is huge! Is it from the kitchen garden?”

Me: “Yeh. The gardeners just brought it over. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

Volunteer 2: “I don’t know how they’ve got it so soon either. The warm weather hasn’t been here long.”

Volunteer 1: “The cabbage in my vegetable patch has only just put in an appearance and my cherry tomatoes are yet to arrive.”

Volunteer 2: “Mine have only just started to grow and are still really small.”

Me: “I know what you mean. The long cold winter has meant hardly anything has grown.”

Volunteer 2: “Yeh.”

Me: “I mean, the best thing I’ve found has been nettles, because the winter doesn’t affect them.”

Volunteer 1: “Nettles?”

Me: *all knowledgeable* “Yehhhhh. They’re great. I make nettle soup with them or steam them and have them as a vegetable with my dinner.”

Volunteer 2: “That sounds interesting.”

Me: *super casual* “O, I’m always doing it. It’s so easy. I just come to the river with a glove and a tupperware box. I love it. I forage loads of stuff. Some people call me Madame Forager, actually.”

Volunteer 1: “O, right. What other stuff do you get?”

Me: *panic* “O, there’s loads of things about. Loads. Edible flowers… Sorrel…. Nettles….”

Volunteer 2: “Wow, that’s brilliant.”

Me: “It is, yeh. I love it.”

Rain 2

It’s Wednesday again and time for my guest blogger to take over. Enjoy.

 

Last week’s subject got me thinking. As well as the weather aspect of rain it crops up in a lot of songs. I thought I’d look at just a few.

Remember the Travis song, Why Does It Always Rain On Me? (1999). Apparently, at the exact moment when they played the song, at Glastonbury in 1999, the weather duly obliged. There’s that other classic by B.J. Thomas, Raindrops keep falling on my head (1970). Rain is a mood-altering phenomenon: it can give us a down when we’re being soaked but give us a lift when we see those dark clouds disappearing and best of all when we see it stopping. Remember the Lighthouse Family and the lines from their song Lifted: “I wouldn’t say I’m mad about the rain, But we’ll get through it anyway.” One thing’s for sure as BJT sang, we’ll never stop the rain by complaining; so don’t – move on, it will stop (eventually)!

Garbage (the group) had a song called I’m only happy when it rains, in 1995, which seems to be a similar sentiment to Gene Kelly, (remember last week’s post).
Remember the opening bars of The Doors’ song, Riders on the Storm? Must be one of the most atmospheric sounds of rain & thunder on record. Only managed to reach No.22 in Britain even with two re-issues. (However, here’s a good one – If you watch this vid of the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS-af9Q-zvQ on Youtube, at about 2m 46s, you will see Jim Morrison lighting a cigarette not far from the petrol pump in a garage where he’s stopped to get fuel. Those were the days, eh? Risk of explosion – who me? Where?)

I don’t know much about the weather in the USA apart from the stuff that makes the news over here. In 1972, when Rapid City (South Dakota) lost 238 inhabitants due to flooding lasting 2 days, Albert Hammond was singing about people saying, It never rains in Southern California but then says “Girl don’t they warn ya – it pours, man it pours”. Any readers from California tell me which is right?

As an aside, did you know that hurricanes don’t actually get named. Yes, I know, you can think of plenty but did you realise how they originate. A tropical storm is named when it reaches a sustained speed of 39mph; if that storm then reaches a sustained speed of 74mph it becomes a hurricane and keeps the name it was given as a storm. Also did you know that the names for Tropical Storms follow a prescribed pattern: the first storm of any year gets a name beginning with “A”, the second a name beginning with “B” and so on. (So in 2012 they went like this: Alberto, then Beryl, Chris, Debby etc). Q, U, X, Y and Z are not used.

Furthermore, if the year is an even number, men’s names are used for the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th etc storms; if the year is odd women’s names are used for the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th etc storms. The names are pre-determined so I can tell you that, if there are 21 storms in 2012 that reach hurricane force, no.21 will be called Hurricane William. I can also tell you that the second storm (poss hurricane) in 2016 will be called Bonnie and the 11th will be Karl. (The full table, which goes to 2017, can be found at http://geology.com/hurricanes/hurricane-names.shtml).

Ok, so back to the rain. Are you a bit like the Carpenters – you know, Rainy days and Mondays always get you down? If you’ve never listened to The Cascades’ song Rhythm of the Rain, watch (listen actually, as it’s it’s only a still pic) this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=l1PJ9mF2H2Q. (A brief count of the different uploads of just this one Cascades song by various sources comes to about 3.5 million views).

Of course you’re probably wondering about the wettest place on Earth: where & how much, obviously?

Here’s the wettest place in Britain: Dalness in Scotland

Looks beautiful doesn’t it? It gets 130 ins (3.3 metres) of rain per year. That means an average of nearly 11 ins per month.

In second place is Seathwaite in the Lake District which is the wettest place in England and here it is.

Seathwaite (in Borrowdale) gets 124 ins of rain per year.

Both of these pale into insignificance when we look at the wettest places in the world. The top two are in India and get 467 ins (11871mm) & 463 ins (11777mm) – that’s more than 1 in (25.4mm) per day! For the UK 124 ins & 130 ins are enough to be going on with. Definitely worth keeping an umbrella with you I’d say.

What a good job this lady took her umbrella with her!! Just think what might have happened if she’d forgotten it.

And this chap too. I’d like to see him do a Gene Kelly (see last week’s post):

So please, if you think it might rain don’t forget that umbrella!

A novel written in 1830 by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) called Paul Clifford begins with these very famous lines:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

The novelist’s name has been immortalised in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. The English Dept of San Jose University (California, you remember where Albert Hammond sang that it never rained) sponsor it and entrants have to compose the opening sentence to “the worst of all possible novels”.

This list has done the rounds a bit so you may have come across some of them before but here are the 10 entries starting at no.10 and working up to the winner (of 2010 possibly):

10. “As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it.”

9. “Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens.”

 

8. “With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description.”

 

7. “Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the East wall: ‘Andre creep.  Andre creep.  Andre creep.'”

 

6. “Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved.”

 

5. “Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store.”

 

4. “Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do.”

 

3. “Like an overripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor.”

 

2. “Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fear’; a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death– in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies.”

 

And the winner is. . .

 

1. “The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog’s deception, screaming madly, ‘You lied!'”

I like no.9 for its simplicity (and of course no.1) but see what you think.
I couldn’t finish without quoting Walter Sichel (1855-1933):

“The rain, it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella:
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just’s umbrella.”

(He is of course putting his own comedic spin on the last part of the verse from the Gospel of Matthew Ch 5 verse 45 which has the words: “For He (God) makes His (God’s) sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (I’ve added words in brackets for explanation purposes).

And that’s it for our second look at rain.

Hope I’ve whet your appetite (see what I did there?) for some further research.

Signs of the times?

It’s that time in the week again, time for the guest blogger to take over….

“Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.”
(Keep reading to find out where these lines are from if you don’t already know.)
I went on holiday recently; it turned out to be a real assignment. Congratulations to the weather which had been very wet for many weeks but which gave me a rain-free, hot, sun-filled week. I visited Norfolk, in a part of the UK called East Anglia, and stayed in a cottage in a small village called Ringstead: it’s a few miles inland from the seaside town of Hunstanton popular with traditional holiday makers. I soon became aware that there are many signs which are meant to give info but sometimes don’t actually say what they mean or don’t say it correctly. On day one (actually a Friday), I took a walk round the seafront there and, in the fairground which had closed because of earlier bad weather, I was surprised to find the following:

Can you see the mistake? Go on, look again if you missed it.
A short distance away was this one:

Apart from the obvious danger of getting into a barrel, can you see the (4) mistakes in this one? Not too hard, eh? Easy to see how kids pick up the bad habits when they do their own writing.
By the way, did you know there is an Apostrophe Protection Society in the UK? It’s actually been featured in a prog on TV some years ago. Here is a quote from their site:
“We are aware of the way the English language is evolving during use, and do not intend any direct criticism of those who have made mistakes, but are just reminding all writers of English text, whether on notices or in documents of any type, of the correct usage of the apostrophe should you wish to put right mistakes you may have inadvertently made.”
Although I am not a member I do think they’re making a very valid point and if they don’t highlight the issue who else will? Check out the “Examples” tab on their site (www.apostrophe.org.uk) and look at some of the howlers – including stuff written by teachers!
Back to the pics. Well, clearly I was on a roll. I’d been going for only 10 mins and had two signs bagged already. I could see another one on a fence in the distance so ran over to see what it said:

Doh! No mistakes and after me eagerly running all the way over.
Then further along the Promenade was this one:

Now I know some people might say you should beware of Cliff Richard but after asking the locals it seems no-one knew who this Cliff Falls guy was. Anyway we had a lovely walk along the beach under the overhanging red rocks and we waved back at all the people who were shouting and waving at us from over on the promenade. We couldn’t tell what they were saying but we thought – this seems to be a really friendly town.
A couple of days later I was in a Craft Centre and came across this one:

Pointing to the sign, I suggested to the Craft Centre lady that perhaps Harry could help. She was not amused. Oh well…
However, was wondering if LLM might want to apply. Why? Well, it seems she might be good at it. If you read her blogs regularly you will have come across the following examples (there are more):
31.7.12 – An Admission – “I pottered over, friendly mission face on….”
27.7.12 – I came, I saw, I passed – “After work, I pottered off home….”
20.7.12 – To Aslan’s Mountain with a wisdom stick – “As we pottered along, admiring the views….”
13.7.12 – Searching For Agatha – “…and potter about in the countryside for a while.”
I like that expression “to potter” or “potter about”. It gives a real sense of relaxed meandering; while others frantically push and shove or drive manically you are in no rush, plenty of time to look around and take in the landscape (or townscape). It speaks of a detached air, of being happy in oneself, unconcerned with the normal daily grind. Yes, pottering about is good. I must have a go at it.
Just across the road was this:

You know what happened? I went in and…… that’s right, there were no ancient mariners! Fancy having a pub just for ancient mariners. I reckon they’re probably a dying breed! (By the way the verse at the start of this post, if you hadn’t guessed, is from Coleridge’s The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner.)
On the Sunday, we went to a Flower Festival in a nearby village. At the entrance to the church we saw this sign:

Yep, you’ve guessed it…….. inside there were no guide dogs….. just loads of people!
There were a number of historical displays inside. This one was about the Norman Conquest. I approached with caution believing it might be one of those things which when people get close it suddenly jumps out at you (and shouts something scary) because there’s a real human being inside who was just keeping very still. There wasn’t……so it didn’t. (I suppose if a person had had an arrow stuck in his eye it would have been quite hard to stand still):

Now apparently the idea that King Harold II (Harold Godwinson) was killed (1066) by an arrow in the eye comes from the pictures on the famous Bayeux Tapestry. However, it also shows what some believe to be another figure also representing Harold being killed by a sword. So it might have been arrow, might have been sword or could have been both.
Another display sign was this one:

Can you spot the mistakes this time? (I count three. Did you get them all?)
Towards the refreshment area and other stalls was this one:

Just one this time. (Apologies to American readers who, I know, do spell it this way).

On Tuesday we went on the Wells to Walsingham Light Railway. The sign told me this amazing fact:

I was impressed – the longest 10¼” gauge in the world! Where did the idea for that width come from? You might think it must be one of those Victorian oddities from long ago but surprisingly this one was built only very recently (1982). You probably won’t be surprised to know that there is actually a Ten and a Quarter Inch Gauge Railway Society and there is a website if you’re really interested.
Thanks to the Wells & Walsingham Light Railway for permission to use the following two photos from their website (as mine didn’t really come out that well).
We travelled on the blue engine. It was called the Norfolk Hero (began in service in 1987 & named in honour of Admiral Lord (Horatio) Nelson. He was born in 1758 in Burnham Thorpe, just 5½ miles west of where the railway starts & 9½ miles east of the village where I stayed):

There is a second engine (new in 2011) called Norfolk Heroine. It is named in honour of Edith Cavell, a British nurse who worked in Belgium during WW1, born 1865 in Swardeston near Norwich in Norfolk. She was shot, in Oct 1915, by the occupying German forces, for helping prisoners escape.

Also nearby was the following warning sign:

You might have to enlarge it but it’s typical of the signs organisations like this have to put up because of the (blame and) claim culture which infects everything these days. It’s a steam train, it runs on coal, it puffs out smoke – what do people expect? However what I didn’t expect was to get hit by one of “the smuts” in a very painful place. Just 15 mins into the journey I suddenly found myself blinking like mad as a piece of smut (prob coal dust) blew into my eye causing me to rub like mad to try and get it to the corner where I thought it wouldn’t hurt as much. Apart from that it was a really enjoyable day out on the little train.
Here’s another ‘spot the mistake one’:

Easy that one? Hope the art was going to be better than the spelling. (I wouldn’t still be there to find out though.)
I like this one because it’s a good pun-like trade name:

Check out the barber’s name in line 4. Hair salons and barber often do call themselves distinctive names. An unusual one I remember from some years ago was called – “Curl up and Dye”.
I’ll finish with one from the main road in the village where I was staying:

It gave me a good laugh anyway. Again you’ll need to enlarge it to see the small text but noteworthy bits are: the price – one quacker, published by – Eggsactly Newspapers and the motto (top right) – “Out for a duck, not run down”. And there are two of them near to the pond. What wags these local rustics are, eh?
I’ve decided – I like signs, especially when sometimes they DON’T say what they mean, sometimes when they’re just fun to read and sometimes when your response is tongue-in-cheek. I didn’t intend to take pics like this but, after the initial spots on day 1, looking for more just became routine. You’re probably asking yourself what assignment was he on about at the beginning of this post? He’s not mentioned it at all. Can you see it now? What assignment? (Do you see what I did there? What a sign meant – haha).

Diamond Jubilee

It’s the regular guest blogger again, with a change of theme this time:

I’ve been doing a series on the concept of Freedom for the past month or so and will return to that next time. However I thought it appropriate to take a break this week and do something on the Diamond Jubilee. The celebration is occupying much of the UK news this year, and in particular, this past week-end. We had a Bank Holiday on Monday and a Jubilee Holiday on Tuesday so no work till today. Hurrah!

60 years on the throne is a fantastic achievement. Both here and abroad there have been a number themed “60” events held and paraphernalia produced: some good, some tacky. One of the most extraordinary has to be The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Gold Kilo Coinproduced by our very own Royal Mint: it has a face value of £1,000 but, as only 60 are being produced, it will cost you £60,000 (about $92,000). What a bargain! Go on treat yourself – you know you want one!

QE’s reign has so far spanned seven decades and the tenures of 11 Prime Ministers. She is on her 12th at the moment with David Cameron. (Queen Victoria managed 10.) In terms of length of reign, QE is on 60 yrs 133 days (as of Sunday last) but QV is still in the lead on 63 years 216 days. (QE became Queen on 6.2.1952 although her coronation did not take place until 2.6.1953.)

During her coronation year (1953), a number of noteworthy events took place both here and around the world. There are, of course, lots but I think these examples are worth a mention, so here we go:

Jan 

Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting For Godot has its first public stage première
in French as En attendant Godot at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris.
USA develops Hydrogen bomb.

Mau-Mau Uprising against British rule in Kenya.

307 people in UK are killed by the North Sea Flood.

Feb

Walt Disney’s Peter Pan has its premiere.

Watson & Crick (University of Cambridge) announce discovery of the DNA
molecule.

Mar

Josef Stalin dies.

Apr

First James Bond novel, Casino Royale is published by Ian Fleming.

May 

Aldous Huxley tries the hallucinogenic drug mescaline for the first time
which inspired his book The Doors of Perception.

France agrees to the provisional independence of Cambodia under King Norodom
Sihanouk.

Edmund Hillary & Sherpa Tenzing Norgay conquer Mt Everest on 29.5.1953. It is
named after Colonel Sir George Everest a Welsh Surveyor-General of India
(1830-43) although curiously, he had not wanted it to be given his name.
(Previously known as Peak XV by the English, Tibetans had called it
Chomolungma for hundreds of years.) Interestingly, news did not reach the UK
until the actual day of the coronation (2.6.1953).

Jun

Egypt declares itself a republic.

The first Chevrolet Corvette is produced at Flint, Michigan.

Jul Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Marilyn Munroe, Jane Russell) is released.

Korean War ends.

Aug

Soviet Union announces it has the hydrogen bomb.

4,000,000 worker go on strike in France over austerity measures.

Sep

Aserinsky & Kleitman publish their discovery of REM (rapid eye movement)
sleep

Oct

UNIVAC 1103, first computer to use random access memory.

UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) is made a specialised agency of the
UN.

Nov

The British Natural History Museum announced that one of the most famous
fossil skulls, that of Piltdown Man, was a hoax.

The Chilean port of Puerto Williams is founded – at 54⁰ south it is the most
southerly settlement in the world (Pop. over 2,200).

Dec

Eisenhower delivers his “Atoms for Peace” speech (about the peaceful use of
nuclear power).

Albert Schweitzer gets the Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of “Reverence
For Life”.

At the end of the year/beginning of 1954 the first colour TVs go on sale in the USA, priced at about $11-1300 (depending on manufacturer).
Now, moving on to our own very local celebration. Originally planned for Sunday 3.6.12, it was brought forward to Saturday because the weather forecast for Sunday was horrendous. Our street (a close actually) had decided some months ago to hold a street party in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee. The organisers canvassed people to provide equipment (tables, chairs, gazebos & tents), baking, sandwich making and provision of drinks. I was asked to provide 4 garden chairs as they were seen by the organisers as they walked past my house. (That’s the organisers ‘walking past my house’ not the chairs if you see what I mean!) As they’d been outside for a number of years (that’s the chairs, not the organisers) I thought I’d better give them a bit of a clean up. I went outside and began washing them down; vigorous rubbing required to get rid of green moss deposits, mud and dirty streaks. Just as I finished chair no. 4 organiser Mike strides up the path to collect them. Whew, a bit close.

The next hour was spent, on the grassed area in the centre of our close, setting up tables, chairs, windbreaks, erecting gazebo & tents; each of the two huge tents could accommodate two tables and 8-12 people seated around them. All we needed now was the food. The call went out; people began pouring out of their houses arms laden with platters, plates and bags of stuff. There were scones with cream on and a strawberry on top, masses of sandwiches, salads, curries, sausage rolls & many bottles of soft drinks etc.

The large round red container, on the left, next to the bowl of salad looks like a tin of the small individually-wrapped chocolate bars called “Celebrations” which are always popular at parties and the like. However for this special occasion the manufacturers had changed the name of their brand to “Jubilations” – see what they did there? And we had one of those special ones!

Here’s a pic of one of the many flags put up. Some of the coloured hoops by the orange crate were set out later in a display as Olympic Rings. See how we combined the two events in our party?

Once everything was ready we were called to stand by the CD player which had been brought out. Power was supplied via 100 foot plus of extension cables. Then came the big moment to open proceedings: the start button was pressed and out boomed The National Anthem on full volume. Once finished, the cry went up, “Get stuck in folks”. That was it – our celebration was now under way: people ate & talked (but not at the same time, of course, being the well-mannered lot that we are!), kids had their faces painted with Union Jacks (that is brushes were used to paint them not the flags), older kids played football. Fortunately, although the sky had looked overcast most of the afternoon, the rain stayed off till much later. It did rain heavily on Sunday as the forecasters had predicted!

A good time was had by all although a few niggles were noted. I expressed a slight concern that The Queen had not turned up despite us “pulling out all the stops”. Part way through proceedings I asked the organiser where he had sited the Port-a-Loo for use by attendees. “There isn’t one!” he chirped merrily. There was nothing for it – I would have to make my way back home. (Mine is 2 houses to the left of the one top left in the picture above so you can see it was quite a trek! I estimated just over 25 metres. Could I make it in time?)

Well soon 7 hours had passed, everyone had enjoyed the bash but now it was tidy up time. As I came out of my house, heading south, I saw someone walking off, eastwards, with my four chairs in his hands. It seems someone had walked off with his so he was taking those. Once I explained that they were mine he gave them to me. However we were puzzled as to how someone else could have walked off with his chairs that they hadn’t brought and that didn’t belong to them. Lots of homes (well the 30 in the close) would need to be searched. I suggested a call to 221b Baker Street – see what I did there? – Homes? Like that other Diamond Jubilee Queen from many years ago, he was not amused!