More excitement

It's not just the Brighton Festival providing interest and even a modicum of what passes as excitement in this little corner of the universe.  The Olympic flame landed on these shores last Saturday and is even now wending its way through hill and dale to (almost) every corner of the land.  The torch actually went out yesterday in the small Devon town of Great Torrington but, unlike the last time the Olympics were held in London (1948), there was a strong back-up team of about 350 people and I imagine that somebody in that team had remembered the matches.

The other junketing had already started before the flame#s arrival and will be all done and dusted by the time the Olympics finally hurl themselves upon a tolerant or not-so-tolerant multitude.  I'm talking about the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.  Her Majesty has been undertaking visits across the country (a bit like the Olympic torch really) to great excitement.  Last Friday she hosted a lunch for the crowned heads of the world at Windsor only to be snubbed by the Spanish who are throwing a paddy over Gibraltar.  On Saturday there was a parade and muster of servicemen and women some thousand strong to honour the Queen.  It didn't occur to me until I saw it mentioned in a newspaper that, in contrast to some countries, our parade consisted of bands and marching units only.  No tanks or ballistic missiles, just pomp and ceremony.

The highlights of the jubilee celebrations will be on the weekend 2 - 5 June - two days tacked on to the normal weekend as holidays.  There is to be a concert and the grand procession on the River Thames with literally hundreds of craft taking part.  As the OB and I will be in France I have bought a new DVD recorder so we can see it when we get home.  (No, I didn't buy it just for that.  It's all connected with the change from analogue to digital television.)

That leads me almost neatly into today's photograph which is of a horse trough now used for nothing much but at one time in use as a flower planter.  This stands at the junction of the Patcham by-pass and the Old London Road and was erected in 1887 to mark another royal jubilee - Queen Victoria's golden.  I'm not aware of any plans to erect a fountain or suchlike to commemorate our present Queen's diamond.