Pirates at the Diamond Jubilee River Pageant Flotilla

Good morning everyone!

First good news of the day: I fixed the blog and it should load normally now :) It was the counter that seemed to mess everything up and cause the blog to take forever to load... But all should be fixed now.

I was going to blog about our lovely pirate adventure yesterday but I was just too tired to be honest as it was an extremely busy day. Yes, we went to the Diamond Jubilee Flotilla! And it was so much fun :)

As you may know, every year we have a PirateCon where we all dress as pirates and just have a good time. This year is just happened to coincide with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. On Sunday (that's yesterday) there was a huge flotilla in honour of her Majesty where they had arranged for 1000 boats to sail down the river Thames after being inspired by a painting of lots of boats on the Thames during Henry VIII's reign. I found the picture! I couldn't find it this afternoon, but if you click here then you'll what inspired the flotilla, it's a painting called London by Canaletto.

We arrived at about 11ish in the morning, and already the banks of the Thames were lined with thousands of people, many of which had camped out at night. And trust me, the weather temperature has gone down by about 20 degrees Celsius so it was cooooold! Last weekend were in the 30s, this weekend hardly in the 10s. As we walked to the pub which was our meeting point, they'd blocked off most of the side streets due to a bomb threat so we had to walk halfway down the Thames, find a path that would take us back and follow that. That took about 45 minutes... Oh well, at least we had a nice walk and got to admire (and be admired by) fellow dressed up people.

This is my Jubilee-ified pirate outfit. I even managed to secure a Union Jack umbrella, how cool is that!

 

 Of course the hair could not be missed, 9 meters of ribbon was in there and a ton of flowery pins. Shame you can't really see the hat as it had lots of ribbons on it also to make it all Jubilee-ish.

Once in the pub we all got settled in and managed to get great seats in the beer garden underneath gigantic umbrellas with outdoor heating. Come rain or shine, we weren't going anywhere. 

 

 It doesn't really any more British than Pimms and a Union Jack flag ;)

I love this pic, with the flag just right. Hilarious! 

 Some pirates needed a helping hand from others and had a pirate beautification session

 

 Others came with amazing style and were ready to pirate (read: drink) away

The parrot did not seem to like this skull very much...

Clearly we really weren't going anywhere and sadly nothing could be more true. The crowds were growing by the second and they were about 10 deep at the banks so unless you were in like the 3rd row, chances of seeing anything of the flotilla were slim to none. 

 So we stayed put and watched it all on the telly through the window of the pub. Not ideal I know, but it was the best we could do. For us it was fine but we met a very nice couple that had travelled down all the way from Birmingham (that's like 3 hours by train), only to end up watching it on the telly through the window of the pub also. The woman started waving her flag at the telly even, it was so cute!

 

Plus it has started to piss down with rain just as the Queen sailed by. But at least I snapped a picture of her on the telly!

A dry moment when everyone come out from underneath the umbrellas but alas it didn't last long...

 

 And soon we cowered back under them for cover and warmth. Ah look, you can see the hat a little better here. At least you can see some of the ribbons coming out. This was my friend who came with me to Pirate for the first time. She had a great time also :)

 Soon after the pageant had finished we went home as well. Or tried to at least. Most of the entrances to the tube station were shut for crowd control and many of the queues were delayed by tourists who didn't know how to work an Oyster. But everyone was in good spirits despite the crowds, and the queues, and the rain.

It seems 1.2 MILLION people lined the banks of the Thames on Sunday, majorly impressive really. For us it was time to go home and have pizza and a girly movie, yay!

In the end I didn't mind not seeing anything really. Being part of the crowd would have been fantastic of course, but on the other hand someone tall would have no doubt stood just in front of me as that seems to be my luck always. At least this way I was relatively warm and dry. And I can still say I've been there :) Also, I'd actually expected it to look more like the flotilla in Troy... hihihi...

Depending on the weather there might be a street party tomorrow but for today I'm just going to recover from all the excitement. Tonight there is also a massive concert just outside Buckingham Palace and tomorrow there is a carriage procession through the city as well. Let's see which one I end up going to. 

I hope you had a great time also if you celebrated anything. I was going to bake actually but I ran out of time. Maybe today and then I'll share that later or tomorrow with you. Have a great day everyone, I know I will as it's a bank holiday and tomorrow also! Whoohoo!

UPDATE: OMG I just got featured on The Toastie Studio Monday Picks with my Jubilee Pirate dress :) Excellent ending to the jubilee :)