How very British

Trust the weather to be a disaster for the Thames River Pageant yesterday as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.  For those of you who are not familiar with this particular phenomenon it is virtually a tradition that whenever there is a Bank Holiday weekend (public/national holiday) the weather turns nasty.  I partially blame my aunt for yesterday because she was complaining the day before that it has been too dry recently (she is a gardening person) and then spent the whole of yesterday complaining that it was raining!  Personally I love this about the English weather...the very fact that you can't rely on it at all, is actually the only thing that you can rely on.  My niece was so lucky for her wedding on 12 May.  Just two days before it had been cold and so wet we were considering whether we could get hold of a boat in time!

But even with the awful weather things still went ahead yesterday, and I think it got to a point where no one really cared anymore, and the rain was almost as much of a star as the sun would have been.  I loved the way the new Needle building, which will be the tallest building in Western Europe, started to disappear as the weather got worse and the cloud got lower.  I don't like just a little bit of rain on such a day.  It has to be soaked to the skin or nothing because you get to the point where wet is best, and much more fun!  I loved the London Symphony Orchestra chorus members at the very end doing their Last Night of the Proms bit when they were drenched and couldn't really even hear what the orchestra was playing below.  Good on you ladies and gentlemen, just enjoy it!

The newspaper this morning questioned why the Queen and the Duke didn't sit on the 'thrones' on the deck of the royal barge.  I would have thought that it was obvious that there was more protection from the cold, wind and driving rain by standing behind them, not sitting on them!  The Queen did briefly go below deck, possible to get a slug of something to warm her, as well as the wrap that she emerged with.  If ever there was a time to splice the mainbrace!