Could be a Rainy Day for the Jubilee…Preparations underway!

                                                                                                Friday June 1/2012 at 11:00PM

Street closures advertised all over, big TV screens being set up in Trafalgar Square and ardent Monarchists are already camped out along the Thames in front of  Tate Modern Gallery in anticipation of the Thames River Flotilla on Sunday. The average age of the ladies is likely mid 70’s and they are from England, Scotland and Australia. They said they “wanted a good view!”. Police boats patrol the river and helicopters fly overhead.

Six hours of walking, a concert and I am back at the dorm. As I got off the elevator I was greeted by a Drag Queen heading out for the evening. Beautiful blue gown, feathers and diamonds! I felt like a grub in my jeans and T shirt.

Today I covered a lot of territory in the north end. Camden Local Studies Library had 2 exhibits..Dickens and the Foundlings! Then on to the London Metropolitan Archives for Memories of earlier Jubilees! Met a women who will part of the street entertainment over the weekend. It is something called “Tea and Sympathy”, so I will be on the lookout for her. In the park across the street from the LMA, The Post Office Museum and The Order of St. John had displays. The young woman from St. John was very talkative when she discovered I was familiar with the organization. Not difficult as they are our First Aiders , as in St. John’s Ambulance. Might check out their museum next week when I have more time.

Next up was tea at the Society of Genealogists and a short bus ride to St. Paul’s where I could cross the river to get to the Thames Festival Office to pick up my winning tickets for the Jubilee Celebrations at Battersea Park. A Shandy at a riverside Pub gave me sufficient strength to walk back across the Millenium Bridge and on to Trafalgar Square to get tickets for another concert at St. Martin in the Field. Tonight it is Royal Baroque by Candlelight….. Handel, Bach, and Telemann.

There is a fantastic exhibition outside the church titled “ODYSSEY”. It is 40 Figures of people and began as a spiritual journey on the part of the artist, Robert Koenig, as he followed a route taken by his mother in 1942 from her home village in Poland, through Krakow, the Nazi Slave Labour Camps during WW2 and eventually on to the UK. The monumental wooden figures, carved from lime trees that had their roots, like his mother, in village of Dominikowice. It speaks to the issues of migration, forced or voluntary, and to heritage, belonging and a person’s place in the world. What began as one man’s search for his Polish Roots has taken on a universal dimension.

Pearl is out in the county with Lady Doris. No word from her so I assume she is having a grand time. Hazel and Marlene will arrive from the north tomorrow and the weekend will officially begin. Time to put my weary body to rest for a few hours. I need to be in tip top shape to Celebrate!

Tags: Diamond Jubilee Celebrations London 2012