June 8, 2022
I very much enjoyed watching
some of the events of Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee over this past weekend.
I don’t have a single favorite moment. If pressed, I would have to say all of the
moments we got to see Her Majesty standing out on the balcony.
Ahead of the Jubilee celebrations,
The BBC produced a documentary entitled Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen. Her
Majesty gave them access to the reams of home movies that her family had taken
through the years, which they used as the basis of the story they told. David
and I are both history lovers and watched it. I still have it recorded because
I know I’ll want to watch it again. If you can find it, the film is worth the
hour or so of your time. And yes, it is available in the U.S., I just don’t
know where.
I also found an “anecdote”
from one of her former protection officers who had spent a great deal of time
in service to the Queen, about the tourists they encountered on one of their
walks in the Windsor Park. This link should take you to it:
https://twitter.com/Jake_Kanter/status/1532715805384884225
I’m in the minority here in my
own country, in supporting the existence of the Monarchy. I might feel
different down the road, but I love our Queen. She isn’t perfect; she has had a
few missteps along the way. But what she has never had along the way is a
change of heart. She vowed to serve for all of her life, and she has kept her
promise now for 75 years—the first 5 years as the Heir Presumptive, and the
next 70 (and counting) as Queen. Over the years, she has traveled more than any
other monarch, and conducted more “official duties” than any other public
servant on record.
One of the commentators said that
part of her appeal, was that in a world in which everything seems to change all
the time, the one thing that has not changed is the Queen.
Over the weekend, our television
screens showed us that so many people came out to celebrate, all different ages,
from across all walks of life. Many held signs, some were dressed up using
variations of the Union Jack, but all with basically the same message.
Paddington Bear said it the
best for all of us: “Thank you, ma’am. For everything.”
The weather network has
predicted that we will not have any seriously hot weather for the first half of
this month of June, and I hope that proves to be the case. I will admit that I
tend not to go outside too much when it gets really hot out. Whereas I spent
the first, oh, sixty-one or so years of my life making do with fans in the summer
(and sometimes I would even have a bowl of ice in front of the fan), I don’t
have it in me to return to that. We have central air and make good use of it. And
I, for one, am very grateful for it.
The are only two exceptions to
this not going outside when it’s hot rule. The first, of course, is if I have
appointments or otherwise must go out to get to some place or other. And the
second is if the A/C feels insufficient to its task. I’ve found it’s psychologically
beneficial to step out into the heat wave for a few minutes and then step back
into the air-conditioned interior of my home. I get the sense of it being
cooler, and that’s often all I need to actually feel cooler.
Our plants are coming along.
Flowers, for the most part, are represented once more in the back yard by the coleus
which our daughter planted. In the front yard, so far, it’s the bulbed spring
flowers, and our two large peonies. The blooms are fading from our lilacs now,
but they were very pretty and welcome while they lasted. We’ll likely pick up some
more flower plants to go in, annuals, of course, before the end of this month.
Our local greenhouse is a good source until the end of July, and even has a bit
of a sale to celebrate Canada Day (July 1st).
Our vegetables on the other
hand, this year, seem to be a mixed result. The tomato plants are doing well,
and a couple even have some blossoms on them. The beans on the other hand…well,
let me put it this way.
Despite the fact that David
feeds the little critters who live in and around our property, his offerings
have been found lacking. Apparently, there is delicacy that our local chipmunks
would prefer, even over the bird seed, sunflower seeds and peanuts in the shell
they’re getting. And that delicacy is beans: either as seeds dug out of the
ground or as tasty greens newly sprouted.
These chipmunks are not at all
fussy; they’ll take them either way.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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