A Quarter of One Year

The last weekend has been pretty crazy over here in England. Some of you might know that it was the Jubilee Weekend where the Common Wealth celebrated the 60-year reign of Queen Elisabeth II. In England this meant that everybody received a five-day weekend. Time they could use to gather, watch TV, eat cakes and celebrate their Queen. Next to family gatherings and garden parties, so-called street parties were organised all over Great Britain. A street party is exactly what the name tells you: A party on the street, organised by a whole neighborhood. They close down the street, put up tables, hang up flags from one side to the other and invite everybody to bring cakes and puddings.

Sadly, my street didn’t organised a street party due to financial issues. So, I didn’t get to participate in a traditional British Jubilee Street Party. However, I was able to go to three Jubilee Parties during this weekend!

Park Party

The first party was organised by the Bournemouth Community Church in which I attended for the last few weeks. They hired a little park and told everybody to bring their own chairs, tables and especially Jubilee decorations, there was a little contest going on. It was when I realised how big the Queen is for some people. Beautiful dresses, hats, sunglasses, loads of flags, Union Jack dishes, cakes and much more. Everything was brought out in the park to celebrate this holiday together. The church’s choir even wrote their own song dedicated to their monarch! What a great, albeit short – surprisingly the whole party was only 2 hours long – afternoon to start of this once in a lifetime holiday. I have to admit my German friend and I couldn’t stop smiling at all the crazy outfits.

CELC Jubilee

The second Party was organised by the college I am studying at – the Christian English Language Center. They provided a Jubilee Lunch for all the students on Tuesday. The school director and especially his wife made a huge effort. Next to the neatly decorated rooms, they indulged us with delicious English cucumber, ham, salmon sandwiches, scones with whipped cream on tope, cupcakes, sponge cakes and much more. You guessed right, I couldn’t resist and had let’s say more than ample sufficiency ; )

Pudding Party

On the same day my hostfamily hosted a all day Jubilee Party. Yep, this meant even more pudding for already filled-up-to-the-top Raphy! In the early afternoon Rushworth’s invited their grandchildren, after that their parents along with some other elderly people and than in the evening the grande finale – the official pudding party for their friends. I must admit, I was glad I had an excuse for not eating to much. This shared evening feast focused on chocolate cakes, vanilla puddings and cakes topped with endless layers of icing. Torture for someone like me who doesn’t exactly love sweet deserts. In spite of that we had a great time with tons of laughters maybe also due to all that sugar.

As you can see, even though I missed out on a street party I had more than enough opportunities to get to know those royal celebrations. My Conclusion of this Jubilee weekend is: The British love the Queen, street parties and celebrate with loads of food especially sugary puddings. It was quite an experience which is hard express in words even without having been in London which I heard was just pure craziness!