Random Musings of a Random Londoner: A Very British Summer

Soooo, the last thing I wrote 3 months ago was along the lines "I hope I don't get an infection". Well, can you guess what happened? So I have been going in & out of hospital, feeling very rough, and looking even worse for the last few months. But thankfully it's all over now, and I can get back into the swing of things (famous last words, right?)

I feel I have missed out on most of the summer, but at least I haven't missed out on nice weather. The thing that did keep me going was all the awesome British-y things going on. The Jubilee & then the Olympics (plus the Paralympics soon) have been wonderful. It's put everyone in an awesome mood, and made patriotism and national pride acceptable once again in England (let's face it, it's always been around in Wales & Scotland!). In this spirit, I seem to have acquired a whole load of Union Flag themed paraphernalia (I surely can't be the only one to be duped by them). I know I'm biased but I honestly think we have the best flag. So here's a few examples of the quality ~~tat~~ I have obtained in the last few months!

So as my welcome back to the internet post I thought I'd share with you a few British photos of what I've done, worn, the jubilee Olympics, and a few of my personal highlights. So even though this is v belated, Enjoy!

So up first is the Diamond Jubilee, I was still pretty ill for this but I went to see the flotilla (no pics as it was raining a preposterous amount!). My street really went all out & one of my neighbours (who happens to collect flags) took it upon himself to decorate the street.

We had a street party (moved indoors for obvious reasons), for which I baked a Union Flag cake!

Really delicious!

Me & my friend then went to a House Party & danced to the early hours. Lovely.

Sticking to the patriotic theme, this is what I wore:

I also went to Hyde Park to see the concert which was so much fun.

Alfie Boe!!!!!! I bloody love him

The weather was beautiful so took a picnic of only the healthiest food!

We sat/sung/danced with any stranger who happened to be unlucky enough to walk past.

A month later I went to a 'Best of British' party at the mess by boyfriend lives in. The dress-code was very open to interpretation, some people only wore a dress in one of the three colours, whilst others went all out. My boy was one of the latter people.

Yes he's the one in the Philip mask

Somehow I have absolutely no photos of myself (gutted) so I'll give you an idea of what I wore. You can piece the items together in your head (lucky readers!), I make people work for my posts!

And finally we come to the Olympics. I went from being a hater to a fangirl within the space of a few hours (the length of the Opening Ceremony to be precise!), and I really miss it now. I was going to do a full summary & give my highlights, but this post has really gone on & on & on, so will just have to do it tomorrow, but I will still show some of my pics.

I was not lucky enough to get any tickets, but I did go to Hyde Park to the free screens a few times, which was very fun. Ridiculously enough we weren't allowed to take food into the screen areas, only crisps and chocolate (makes sense to only allow food that leads to obesity when watching sports!), so we had to sit outside to eat our sushi like the naughty children we are.

When we had our fill we went in & watched Charlotte Dujardin win Gold in dressage! The crowd went wild & we all stood to sing the national anthem!

She wins the medal & I do an excited face

We then went on a walk around London. We found a square which croquet set up so we had a couple of games, whilst a zumba class happened in the background. Very surreal.

Smugly preparing to hit my ball out
- but it was then brought back to me by a well meaning tourist!

After thrashing the boy in the last game (thanks to some very tactical cheating) we carried on our wander & ended up going down to Tower Bridge to see the Olympic Rings. I'm really going to miss these, which is ridiculous.