I love the Royal Family!

There, I have said it. Some people are anti-Royal for many reasons; political and personal. However, I think they are a great asset to the Country and the Commonwealth.

Bearing in mind that the Queen has given service the Country for 70 years, constantly in the public eye and having to do a lot of things that she may not be interested in or even enjoy, All in all, I think she has done a marvellous job.

All Decked Out

I know I certainly wouldn’t want that responsibility on MY shoulders!

With her 70th Jubilee coming up, it gave me a real opportunity to celebrate it by having a little family party. Nothing too fancy, standard old fashioned food; sandwiches, cocktail sausages, vol-au-vents, pork pie and cheese and pineapple on sticks.

For dessert it had to be traditional too – trifle, cake and scones with clotted cream.

Before all that though there was a few other Jubilee events to get through.

Red, White and Blue

Friday afternoon I attended a marvellous street party which had a quiz, cake off, music and a bbq.

Of course I decided that a vintage red, white and blue outfit was the perfect choice. I put on a beloved striped Dolly and Dotty ‘Darlene’ dress, matching Lulu-Hun shoes, seamed stockings, bangles and the red hat of my dreams that I bought at York last month.

Making my calorie laden strawberry cream cake, I hoped it would do well in the competition.

The Full Look

The afternoon was absolutely brilliant; the quiz was all based on the Queen and her life and the team I was with scored highly. Regardless of that, it was just very good fun all round.

Sitting in the sun was thoroughly enjoyable and once the meat was bbq’d we all tucked in.

Party Time

Eventually it was time for the cake off and I submitted my berry covered cake and hoped for the best.

I was, however, shocked when the judges announced that my cake had won!

Huzzah!

Mine is the one with the Strawberry sides

Saturday was a totally different affair, however I still went with the red, white and blue theme; this time a red and blue poppy coloured dress, bangles and earrings.

I kept things a little simple as it was a day of shopping with Mum. The Plan?  Lots of ingredients for the Party on Sunday.

Perfect As A Poppy

Going out early, we filled the trolley with ingredients to make sandwich fillings, meringue and cocktails. Two and a half hours later and the car was chock full of bags of shopping.

In the end, I had to call Baby Bear to come and meet us as we couldn’t fit in my little mini with all the food and drink in it.

The Full Spread

I have to admit to being absolutely exhausted by the time I got all the bags into the house.

Thankfully most of the preparation needed to be done on Sunday, so I spent the afternoon relaxing and watching the Jubilee based programmes that I had recorded on Sky+ over the week.

Home-made Meringue

Sunday started early with sandwiches to make, tartlets to prepare, a sauce for the prawns to create and a meringue to fill with cream and decorate.

Add on top cleaning, mopping and then decorating the house with Jubilee themed items; flower pom-poms, bunting and flags. I had bought matching paper plates, cups and silly hats/glasses for the guests.

Jubilee Crowns

There were 14 of us at the garden party and I had to keep my fingers crossed that the sun stayed out all day.

I put on my Jubilee outfit of a blue Lady V London dress, Irregular Choice red shoes, bangles, Ruby Boo Makes floral corsage and that wonderful red hat again, from Timebomb Vintage

Jubilee Style

Setting up the Alexa, I had programmed a playlist with music from the past seven decades and let it randomly play during the afternoon. The fact that I had added hundreds of songs meant I could just leave it running.

I had made jugs of Pimms for those partaking, there was a multitude of Gin, mixers, soft drinks and wine.

Patriotic Style

The ladies in the group started off with Champagne and it was time to tuck into some food.

Sadly, the weather was a little inclement and so we held the party inside which was a little bit of a shame but didn’t stop us from having a wonderful time.

In Full Swing

All in all, everyone had a brilliant time and we plowed our way through a lot of food and drink. There was even a performance on the guitar and ukulele by the marvellous and talented Victoria which went down an absolute treat.

The final part of the evening was watching the Jubilee pageant, which was a marvellous affair. I even spotted two or three people walking in the parade that I knew very well, which was a wonderful surprise.

Cake And Scones

The icing on the top of the cake had to be the Ed Sheeran finale when the remaining 11 guests all sang along, holding hands and swaying in time to the music.

A real highlight to a wonderful weekend celebrating Her Royal Highness’ special event.

Party Hi-Jinks

Happy 70th Jubilee, Ma’am and Thank you for all your service.

Till next time,

SPSG xxx