Lockdown Day 46 - Celebrations Are NOT Cancelled

Today was a ‘Bank Holiday’ in the UK. We normally have a Bank Holiday in early May but it was moved to the 8th this year to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE Day. There were many national celebrations planned for today, which in the end needed to be cancelled or postponed because of the lockdown.

But many neighbourhoods became very creative and still had some semblance of the traditional street party, all while following the social distancing rules. We were encouraged to have a tea party in our own front gardens with our own family. Since I live alone and can’t see my neighbours very well I had to be creative in how I was going to do this. And then I remembered my ‘bear hunt’ blip from several weeks ago. Since I have plenty of bears, dogs and other animals in the house (many who used to belong to Dolly), I decided that today was the perfect day for a Teddy Bear’s Picnic theme. So out they came from the window or elsewhere in the house and joined me on the front lawn. I hope we all looked suitably patriotic - not bad for an American, I hope?

Many of the neighbours went on ‘walkabout’ to greet other neighbours, so I had some visitors, all over 2m apart. And I also walked around to see how others were celebrating and had decorated their houses. Some neighbours provided some live music over loudspeakers, which we all enjoyed. Eventually I did join the neighbours across the road. We were 4-5 households sitting in a large circle with lots of space in between, so still fully compliant with the distancing rules.

It was a great celebration and I’m sure we all look forward to when we can have a PROPER street party when we don’t have to be quite so careful. I wonder how long that will take?

Besides the street party, I very much enjoyed some of the VE Day coverage on TV, The (re)broadcast of Churchill’s famous VE Day speech, the Red Arrows flying over London, a live concert outside Buckingham Palace in the evening, followed by a speech from the Queen as she again addressed the nation.