Jubilee Weekend BBQ

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This weekend QE II's Diamond Jubilee is being officially celebrated and the whole of the country is being encouraged to join in by having street parties and BBQs. As these celebrations coincide with our last day in the UK, Kath and Albert organised a BBQ with some of the family and friends.

While we were in Turkey, Colin purchased a new barbecue in preparation for Adam's 18th Birthday celebrations in July. As it is a charcoal burning barbecue he wanted to assemble it and try it out tonight so that he could get an idea of how long it takes to have a good bed of coals to cook over. Colin, Bernie and Albert spent a fair proportion of the afternoon putting the barbecue together before Colin went home for an hour or so before the time agreed for the lighting of the flame.

At about 4.30pm the barbecues were lit ... and the rain started. It was overcast all day, but the rain held off until it was time to start cooking out of doors!! Not to worry, the patio umbrella was set up with a tarpaulin over it so that the barbecuing could proceed.

It seemed like there was going to be far too much food, but I totally underestimated how much food could be consumed by two teenage boys, five young girls and two toddlers! After ten adults ate too there was very little food left over. Colin and Lucy's friend Jo brought Eton Mess for desert. Yum. Bernie was really keen on it so I think I'll have to try making it at home.

After dinner we sat around guessing the music that Colin has on his smartphone - which was surprisingly entertaining since we'd all had a few drinks! Considering that Colin is about 5-6 years younger than us his music collection was remarkably similar to ours. Stuart was the real surprise though - he's about 14-15 years younger than us, but he was a real whiz at guessing the songs on Colin's phone. He is a bit of a pub trivia buff which probably explains it.

No-one wanted a late night which was good because we needed to be up early for our flight to Chicago on Sunday. Everyone was gone by about 9.00pm and we were able to finish off most of our packing and have a reasonably early night.

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