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!
I love that you, a non Englishwoman, got the most questions right! I'd be so curious as to the questions - I LOVE TRIVIA as you can probably tell from my blog. Sounds like a great celebration :) Thank you for linking up today!