Thank you, Ma'am, for the four day weekend ... sorry I couldn't make it to town

Before last weekend, the British monarchy had celebrated just one other diamond Jubilee in its history, when Queen Victoria made it to 60 years in in 1897.  I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I can't remember hearing of any other such long-serving monarchs.  Which makes this past weekend not just a once-in-a-lifetime thing; but something far rarer.

In my first decade in England, the proverbial wild horses couldn't have kept me away from the party.  Those were my heady days of 500-mile a weekend road trips, cash lavished on any event at a historic venue and a 6am start  ... and six hours in the queue ... to file past the Queen Mother's coffin.  My love of history and monarchy is intact.  If anything, continued exposure has made me respect and admire Queen Elizabeth II even more than when I first landed on these shores.  But I gave London a wide berth this weekend, watching the events on the BBC.  Just 45 miles from the action, I was having pretty much the same experience as all those Americans who would have killed to be there.

Blame the weather.  Like clockwork, the sun and warmth faded the closer we got to the holiday weekend.  Most of the big events played out in a rain-drizzled chill that would have done my perpetual, chemo-inspired chest problems no good at all.  Common sense said that decent views at any event would have required camping out; I later heard that people showing up for the river pageant four hours in advance ended up 14 rows back.  Of course, they didn't see a thing.  We got every detail in the living room.

I might not have battled the crowds in London, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment of the big event.  The whole country has gotten into the festive mood.  Union Jacks and patriotic bunting flew everywhere.  Patriotic street parties brought communities together.  Radios blared with a consistent soundtrack of the national anthem, Zadoc the Priest, Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance, Rule Britannia and the like.  Every magazine cover themed itself around the event.  I even spotted fireworks on the horizon.  It was as if the English ... usually hostile to any expression of national pride outside of athletic contents or Proms-style concerts ... suddenly decided to have their own Fourth of July or Bastille Day.  It was fabulous.  I wish we'd do it every year.  


We celebrated with our own barbecue, generous lashings of TV viewing and a lot of admiration of the woman at the centre of things.  A woman who's never had any choice in her role, has always lived life in a fishbowl, yet never shows us anything but grace and dignity.  A rock of calm surety in a world of mad change.  With every year that goes on, everyone seems to appreciate her more.  Those dark, anti-monarchical days following Diana's death are long gone.  Few would speak a word against the crown these days.  That makes at least one her majesty's adopted subjects very, very happy.