Jubilee Celebrations…

Westcott Street Party was one of many that happened during the long weekend and it attracted a good turn out with an estimated 700 people either on the recreational ground watching the sporting endeavours, or along Westcott Street eating, drinking and making merry. We started at the rec and watched various iconic ‘sporting’ events, such as egg and spoon race, sack race, three legged race. Some energetic souls competed in the Westcott Mile around the village and teams lined up for the tug-of-war contest (the best of which was the Rugby Club lads all dressed in black and flexing and stretching with serious intent as they faced off against the Old Gits team dressed in red, white and blue of various combinations and whose pre-match routine seemed to consist of emptying their wine glasses and hip flask cups before handing them to members of the audience for temporary protection). The combination of sneaky additional members on the Old Git’s team and Sue’s advice to ‘not be too rough on the old guys’, meant that the Old Gits took an early and surprising (especially to the Rugby Boys) lead in the best of three pulls before they eventually succumbed.

Spots of rain drove us back home where we had our picnic lunch indoors with friends and neighbours. Once it cleared and suitably fortified a few of us ventured forth again to where the street party was continuing and we set up camp in front of the music tent where we listened to the fine musicians, watched the dancers and eventually, once forcibly dragged onto the dance floor by Jodie, dancing ourselves. Our supplies we replenished by the regular need to return home relieve one selves only to return with replacement liquids (had it been planned better the girls might have started on the Moet and Taittinger rather than starting with the Prosecco and ending on the posh stuff)

The marathon Jubilee weekend on television included all of the events that the Queen attended including the Epsom Derby, the Thames floating pageant, the concert at Buckingham Palace, the lighting of the beacons throughout the country and Commonwealth and ending with the service at St Paul’s a carriage procession and fly past over Buck House. Not everyone is a staunch Royalist but there certainly seemed to be plenty of determined flag waving souls who stood in the regular deluge of rain to support the Queen, and we did watch some of it on the box from the comfort of our lounge (those poor singers standing on the Philharmonic barge in the driving rain, soaked to the skin in the cold wind as they bravely sang out).