Jubilations

How was your Platinum Jubilee weekend?

I have never been much of a royalist, although after living in America you get to appreciate the pomp and pageantry and how jealous Americans are of it. My overriding thought this weekend was that no one could do it like we can.

I do always remember my dear Nan though when stoking the coal fire she would casually stare up at the Queen Mother on TV and say to no one in particular “I’d look that good if I’d never done a days work in my life.”

For most the royals represent entitled and outmoded hangers on, yet whatever your views on The Queen herself, she is working over 30 years beyond her natural retirement date, and despite her age and frailty continues to reign with dignity and grace in spite of the awful chaos surrounding her and her extended family.

The Queen shone this weekend as the country came together to celebrate her reign and I was pretty glued to it if I was honest and proud, and slightly jealous of missing out.

I was also annoyed with myself that I didn’t make more of a fuss of it here at home and felt guilty that for my daughters’ sake I hadn’t covered the house in red, white and blue, banged on about Blighty and Queenie, and cracked open a bottle of Pimms.

A missed opportunity to be part of history and probably never to witnessed ever again.

It was also a missed opportunity here in Bermuda. You’d be forgiven for even knowing that across the Commonwealth there was anything remarkable going on.

Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory where the Queen is the Monarch, but the occasion was marked with a few low key events, mostly organized by the office of the Governor Rena Lalgie. Hell, the government here rarely miss out on throwing an extra day off into the calendar, well not this weekend sadly.

I was saddened and quite disheartened that other than a lonely Union Jack flag draped lopsidedly outside one of the Hamilton shops there was little fanfare, but with talk of independence getting louder it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

So a normal weekend here on the rock, and back to work tomorrow with no office chatter of street carnivals, concerts or too much Pimms, just the first tropical storm of the season heading our way mid-afternoon.