The Diamond Jubilee

If you don't know it's the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this weekend - then you've emerged from a cave where you've been trapped, or rescued from the desert island you've been stranded on, for quite sometime.

If either is the case - then you may also appreciate knowing that London won the bid to hold the Olympics this year. Which means you've been trapped or stranded for a few years.  Welcome home!

Back to the main point ...

I always think I won't get caught up in the excitement of these events, so never prepare for them.  I should know better. I am a Royalist, I am also fiercely patriotic. And I scream at presenters, reporters and anyone who calls our flag the Union Jack.  It is the Union Flag - and only a Jack when flown from a ship.

Belatedly yesterday, having got my first twinge of Jubilee Fever, I was rushing around trying to find bunting and thinking up food that we could munch while we watch the pomp and ceremony of the occasion.  Let's face it, it's something we do extraordinarily well. It's always incredibly moving to watch.

My daughter has been Sherlocked.

Then I realised it clashes with my daughter holding a Sherlock fest with two friends coming to stay.  This means they'll be watching Benedict Cumberbatch delivering words like a machine gun - how does he do that?  And I'll be enjoying a full English Sunday brunch, in my jim jams, and patriotic jim jams they are - all red, white and blue, while watching the telly on my own.

In the afternoon I'll have tea - as in cucumber, smoked salmon and tomato sandwiches (not in one sandwich, that's the selection) while drinking Earl Grey.  There's also chocolate fudge cake and trifle.

But that's only Sunday taken care of - there's Monday and Tuesday, too.

We lived in the mock tudor house on the hill.
It was, and still is, called The Cottage!

I remember the 1977 Jubilee.  I spent it on Exmoor visiting my best friend in the town where I'd once lived.  Dulverton was all bunting, flags and people enjoying the sunshine.  In the road where I am now living there isn't much to show that the Diamond Jubilee is taking place.  I think it's a great shame, if anything it's an opportunity to bring the community together.

So far it feels like a normal weekend.  Even the double bank holiday isn't an added bonus for me as it falls during the half-term break, so I wouldn't have been doing the school run anyway.  Also writers never really take a day off.  Even when I'm not actually getting words down, I'm always thinking, plotting or mulling over solutions to problems.

So, what are your plans for the Jubilee weekend?  Will you be celebrating or ignoring it?