Diamond Jubilee Celebrations (Part 1)

HM Queen Elizabeth II is celebrating her 60 year reign this June. This is only the second time a monarch has reached this landmark with Queen Victoria celebrating this achievement in 1897. Events have been taking place throughout the year reaching their peak this weekend with official events all over London and a street party in every corner of the United Kingdom (and globe).

Celebrations kicked off for me on Friday at my company's Diamond Jubilee street party. We were given a dress down day (as long as we maintained the patriotic colours) to mark the occasion. Our usual boring canteen was bedecked in Union Jack bunting, a table full of traditional British fare, and a CD on loop of British fan fare (i.e. 'Rule Britannia').

Our longest reigning employees.

Our longest "reigning" employee was named 'queen of the day' meaning she had to wear a Queen Elizabeth II paper mask, while our Managing Director acted as the Duke of Edinburgh. There was a raffle draw but the closest I got to winning by misreading one of my numbers and taking a tin of shortbread, which I had to quickly pass on to the rightful owner. There was also a quiz on the Queen, which I scored 8 out of 12 on, the highest score achieved not using Google might I add! One of my better, if not best, days at work.

On Saturday, Luke and I drove up to Southam to celebrate with his family. First we attended Southam's street party (see I told you there were a lot of street parties planned). It appeared the whole town, and several others, had turned up for Southam's street party, or perhaps the population was larger than I imagined. I spent my time dodging prams and trying to find a token seller as I was instructed that was the only way I could ride the mechanical bull or play any games.

Stilt walker at the Southam street party

Unfortunately, we never did find the elusive token sellers and so I had to appease myself with 2 books from the charity shop and having a piggy back from Luke all the way from town centre to his mum's house. After Luke had a breather we went to Pam and Mick's house for Jubilee barbecue. With our little cousins, Sam and Isaac, around we would need all the energy we could muster as the first words Isaac uttered were "you hide, I'll seek".

St. James' Church on a walk back from town centre

After an hour of playing hide and seek, we moved the party inside where Isaac used the Union Jack table cloths to wrap me up as giant British present. We would later use these same table cloths to create a "boys and Erin den" as Sam put it which the boys (and nearly us) fell asleep in as the night came to a close.

The Jubilee festivities didn't end on Saturday, we've had two more days full and one more day to go, so stay tuned and God save the Queen!

Erin x

"Beer Can" in an English Accent

They say that if you say "beer can" in an English accent, that it will sound like you're saying "bacon" in a Jamaican accent. Not possessing an English accent myself, I enlisted Luke to help with this experiment and he was willing to be filmed saying this so that you could be the judge. Enjoy!

Q: So what do you think? Does "beer can" sound like "bacon"?

Erin x

An evening of Clairvoyance & Mediumship

Luke and I did something totally random last Wednesday after work, we went to a psychic reading! It all started a few months back when Jodie told Nadia and I that her dad was getting married to a woman, Sam, who worked as a psychic. When Jodie then mentioned that her dad and girlfriend would be travelling down to her local pub in Olney, The Swan, to give a public reading we were eager to go. I'd never been to a psychic reading before and it sounded like it could be loads of fun. One thing lead to another and soon Luke and I were joining Jodie, Dean, Nadia and James at The Swan.

The place was packed, so packed in fact we had trouble locating each other until it was nearly time to enter the room. We all grabbed a drink and sat nervously around a table in the back, which we regretted almost immediately as we hadn't noticed it was perched next to a set of rather spooky-looking stairs. There were about 25 of us in the tiny room the pub had allocated to the reading, so it felt quite intimate. More intimate than I was expecting. We all felt a bit jittery when Sam closed the door and we realised it was all about to begin. I had no idea what to expect, I don't think anyone did really and the beginning was filled with uncomfortable giggles and furtive glances around the room.

It started off with Sam explaining what it was exactly she did, and that she would be going to speak to people as and when the spirits spoke to her (cue more nervous laughter). The first person she read was a middle-aged woman on the other side of the room from us. I don't remember exactly what she said to her but the woman got very emotional so it must have struck a cord. On the whole, some of the things she said could be seen as generic advice rather than psychic readings, while other things left me wondering how she possibly could have known. We thought, or at least hoped, we had escaped any readings until at the very end she looked at Nadia and told her she needed to stop worrying so much. 

After the public reading ended, Sam sat down with us for a while and talked more to Nadia (apparently she will be having 2 boys and 1 girl but not for another two years). It was interesting to talk about things you wouldn't normally speak routinely about like ghosts and spirits. Made even more amusing by the incredibly drunk local inserting words of wisdom such as "you are good" (directed at Sam) and asking James if Luke was his little brother. As we said good bye Sam had a few last words for Luke, "you will get where you want to be in life but you must stop being afraid to step on peoples' toes".

So whether you believe in psychic readings or are a born sceptic I encourage you to do something random with your nights whenever possible, you never know what sort of fun you could have!

Erin x