Diamond Jubilee
It’s been an amazing weekend so far. For me it started on Thursday afternoon, when along with a couple of friends, I enjoyed a Jubilee afternoon tea produced by the catering department students at Norwich City College. Tiny sandwiches, scones piled with jam and cream, and delicious shortbread biscuits, together with as much tea as I could drink. Excellent! While there, I took advantage of the table decorations to snaffle a cardboard union jack, which I pinned to my red blouse on the Saturday afternoon.
That occasion was a Jubilee party in Brundall Rectory garden, complete with fun and games, cream teas, and three local choirs. Our choir was on first, and most of us were dressed patriotically in red, white and blue. The weather was kind to us, and all went well.
Yesterday afternoon Ian and I watched the river pageant on the Thames. Well, watched it on television. It was a great spectacle. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh stood the whole time – goodness knows how, at 86 and 90 respectively – and looked to be thoroughly enjoying every minute, even though the Queen looked really cold. It reminded me of the coronation sixty years ago, when I received a book – Elizabeth Our Queen – at primary school, and our family trooped next door to watch the coronation on Aunty Esme’s brand new, tiny, black-and-white television, bought especially for the occasion (and the first television in the whole street. It was another ten years or so before we had a television.)
In the evening I sang with the Brundall church choir at Brundall’s lovely Jubilee service, giving thanks for sixty wonderful years on the throne, and this afternoon Ian and I strolled around the village, admiring the bunting 
and cheering on the families engaged in a local Jubilee treasure hunt. Tonight we shall watch the concert from Buckingham Palace – again on television!
It has certainly been a terrific weekend, one to remember, and a fitting tribute to our indefatigable Queen. None of us alive today will ever see a sixty year reign again, and we thank God for our Royal Family and all the (often hidden) work they do for our nation.
Three thoroughly British cheers for Her Majesty and long live the Queen!