05/06/2012

Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee, Day Four

Queen Elizabeth then and now
Elizabeth, then and now. Subway billboard.

The Queen's four day Diamond Jubilee has finally come to an end. Lovely event. The Queen was Her usual regal but human self; classic and modern. She had History to make and did.

Silver hand
Silver hand, V&A Museum

The luncheons, carriage parades, concerts, horses, ships and river boats, jets (the RAF finally got to do its flyover), cheering throngs, snipers lining the rooftops. The rain. The stress put poor Prince Philip in the hospital. Today our neighbors on Huron Street started taking down the flags and cleaned up the detritus from yesterday's Jubilee block party. Done. Good.

Whitechapel High Street
Whitechapel High Street

Today, we took the tube to the Museum of London Docklands. Excellent exhibit. Wonderful life-size, walk-though dioramas to draw you in. Afterwards we went to the Whitechapel Gallery in London's East End. It has a prestigious history but I can't say much for the exhibits we saw today. Seems the place is more geared to events and projects like their writer-in-residence program and workshops. It has the only store I've ever seen that carries art books by Yoko Ono.

Whitechapel High Street
Whitechapel High Street

It's been raining since mid-afternoon and we are home and tucked in early. The opera singer who lives across the street has been practicing again today. Her soprano voice goes well with the rain. I was going to read at the open mic at the Poetry Cafe tonight but we have to get up really early tomorrow morning to accompany M. Lee's mom downtown so we need to get to bed early tonight. I'll probably read next week instead.

Walkabout
Dockland walkabout



4 comments:

Don said...

Do it! How often do they get poetry delivered in the straightforward cadences of western Nevada?

asha said...

Don, probably not very often. People here have told me they love my "American accent". I wish I could hear it.

Roy said...

I wonder how long you'll have to stay in England before you would begin to hear your American accent. I still can't hear my "California accent," whatever that is, here in Missouri/Kansas. That's probably because I don't say stuff like "todalee, dood."

asha said...

Roy, actually I'm struggling to keep my luv-ly American accent, whatever the hell it is, but turns of phrase and pronunciation are leaking in.