Diamond Jubilee Weekend 2012

Friday 1^st June 2012

Queen Elizabeth II has been on the throne for 60 years and the whole country is celebrating her diamond jubilee this weekend. The last jubilee like this was Queen Victoria’s in 1897 and it was for Queen Vic’s sake that the traditional diamond jubilee of 75 years was brought down by 15years!

After an entire month of rain in April and some gloriously hot summer days in May (over 25C!), the weekend the nation desperately wants to be sunny and bright is forecast to be overcast and rainy!

Our village has a little something on each day of this weekend; today a previously overgrown corner on the main road will be opened as the Jubilee Garden with new brick paving, newly planted colourful plants, and a bench and two chairs to enjoy the new space and colour.  This afternoon the primary school children will snake down the road for the official opening and to plant a tree.

Today is overcast; there’s certainly not enough blue sky to make a sailor even a handkerchief never mind about the traditional pair of trousers! But this morning was dry so Bella and I went for an hour’s walk in pastures new.

Behind the Red Lion (closed) pub, turn right towards Lings Lane, cross Lings Lane and we simply followed the footpath signs until we came to familiar territory on Bylam Lane leading up to the main road through Chelmondiston. From there we turned left on to Richardson’s Lane and found the familiar cutting past the playing fields and home – by this time the white skies had started to spit, just a little.

The intensely beautiful yellow fields of rape have faded and only one or two plants on the edges of the fields are hanging on to their yellow gowns. The bright red field poppies are springing up looking incredibly startling against the summer greens on an overcast day.  Even the yellow dandelions and weeds look pretty against the new greens.       

The chorus of birds, none of which I can identify except the tuneful blackbird, didn't care that the sun wasn't shining and twittered contentedly, flittering backwards and forwards over seeding grasses and crops; their young probably calling for more worms, more caterpillars, more insects! The bees hummed in and out of bright flower heads and there was probably quite a network of mouse paths at the base of those rape fields - Bella seemed to think so!  

It's the time of year when wild flowers and colourful so-called weeds make a walk in the country fields a pleasant and colourful morning well spent!

I Went West - Mother-Daughter Time

Meg leaves for a uni overseas summer excursion at the end of the month – it’s an English thing!

Meg in the middle!

International Development Through Excelence and Leadership in Sport or IDEALS is a UK Sport initiative which aims to establish a high quality, progressive and co-ordinated sports leadership development exchange programme for young people aged 20-35 between the UK and partner countries.

The main Team Bath participants are from Bath University, with ‘Bath-SPA-University-Meg’ and a Bath Spa lecturer tasked with the media side – filming, photographing, etc.  So I spent some mother-daughter time with her in the City of Bath before her African adventure!

Weather-wise it was a fantastically summery few days! Meg has officially finished her final year, handed in all her assignments and was looking forward to showing me some touristy stuff she hadn’t yet done on her own!

I arrived Saturday afternoon and after a short break at her student house we walked around Bath with Meg pointing out various landmarks, and having an early supper in the most important one – Pizza Hut! Saturday night disappeared very quickly with a game of Scrabble (I think I won!), internet quizzes and laughs – mainly as I tried to get out of her comfy beanbag!

Sunday morning I got to meet the wonderful Christian family she has been privileged to worship with at Oldfield Park Baptist Church. Friendly, happy, smiley, and a good sermon thrown in!

  Sunday Lunch was the left-over pizza from Saturday with a HUGE portion of hot chips for £1.50 from Herbies Fish & Chip Shop on Moorland Road - one portion would easily have satisfied three of us - which we then had to walk off around Victoria Park, The Botanical Gardens and The Dell!

Found hidden among the trees!

A greedy Robin who was stuffing his beak with as many crumbs as he could!

Spring Pigeons!

 

Monday was the touristy day and 212 steep spiral steps later we were at the top of the Bath Abbey tower!  About half-way up (yay! Whew!) we had the tourist talk in the bell-ringing room and sat behind the clock face, but at the top the whole basin of Bath was set around us. I concentrated on how high we were hence the photos of the busker way down below looking like an ant on a washed-out distorted chequer board!

 

St Michaels church tower in the middle (I think!)

Lunch at St Michaels church – very nice salmon & cream cheese sandwich – and back to the house to recover before bussing up to the 'rival' Bath Uni campus for a Zambia IDEALS media photo-shoot. (I love people-watching and it’s amazing how many decades of fashion you find on a 21^st century university campus!)

Tuesday Meg wanted to find Cribbs Causeway  – a shopping mall she hadn’t been to yet – with the intention of buying summer clothes for the 6 weeks in Zambia.  Neither of us realised it was 12 miles further north of Bristol! First a 20 minute train ride Bath to Bristol; then a 10minute walk up, down and across the road looking for the right bus stop! then an hour’s bus-ride to the mall! And after traipsing through shop after shop after shop, we came away with one pair of trainers and some cheap jewellery! (She bought the rest of the stuff in Bath, after saying goodbye to me at the station on Wednesday!)

While we were bussing through Bristol city centre and miles out of town, the 2012 Olympic Torch was arriving in Bath. When we returned home to Bath the Olympic Torch was arriving in Bristol!  Planned timing!

Wednesday was going home day – saying goodbye to Meg before she goes off to Zambia! (sniff!)

Going Back East: Bath to Paddington, (at least it wasn't a football day like the Saturday I left!) Paddington to Liverpool St (walking 5-10 minutes to the Circle Line only to find it stops at Edgware so back past the train I’ve just come off, to the Hammersmith and City Line only to hear the announcement when on the train that I was on the Circle Line to Liverpool St!!??!) Liverpool St to Ipswich where hubby waits!!

Mother-Daughter time - good!