Jubilee

I happened to be in London last weekend while the Queen's diamond jubilee was going on. I'm not the most enthusiastic royalist - she seems a lovely lady and hard working and dedicated and proudly independent, which I like, but the royal family have always just seemed irrelevant to my life. But I did quite fancy seeing some of the flotilla of 1000 boats come down the Thames, but quite clearly by jumping on the train in from north London an hour beforehand we weren't going to get the best views. And so it was - we found crowds and crowds of people pouring towards the river, wearing most possible combinations of red, white & blue; a solid mass of spectators who must have been lining the river banks for hours; people waving flags from the windows of every overlooking residential and many office blocks. It was fun to take in the atmosphere, but we quickly got tired of the crowds & went for a walk through the back streets instead, listening to the distant music and cheers, and coming across various street parties in preparation. Later on the heavens opened as we walked through the park, but it didn't seem to dampen people's spirits too much. I'm not used to seeing that much patriotic flag waving and it all seemed a bit American to me, but it was nice to see people's enthusiasm for something big and communal and societal. Maybe the Queen's more useful than I thought. I'll vote for you next time, Ma'am!