Jubilation

Funnily enough, I haven't heard of there being that many Jubilee parties at home in Scotland. In fact, of my friends in England that I have spoken to recently, I'm not sure that even one of them was doing *something* for the Jubilee beyond trying to avoid all the news coverage on tv.

And yet, here in Berlin, there has been quite a lot of Jubilee action. Patently abroad is where you need to be in order to muster up the enthusiasm for a party. We were invited to 4 Jubilee parties yesterday. Since we were invited to a staunch republican's party yonks ago, that was the one we went to.

Essentially, I think it was just a good excuse for a lot of us to get together, the kind of get-together that always seems too much of a faff to be bothered with at home. So it was good fun, and the kids (for it was all people from Orla's school) had a great time. We even had imported British weather just for the occasion, which was, um... lovely.

Stevie was feeling a bit tired though, and he's got a sore back, which might have something to do with us just having driven back from Bavaria. For oh yes, we spent the past few days down south visiting Legoland Deutschland & the Playmobil Funpark again. We got back on Saturday evening, and as I was baking for the party, that meant I got to spend last night getting Orla ready to go back to school today. Because of course you can guarantee that if you've been away for the best part of a week, come back and partied then of course it goes without saying that a fancy dress outfit will be required for the following day. Meet my vision of modern monarchy, Princess Orla:

Today they're having a Jubilee party at school and the kids were to come dressed up, ideally incorporating the theme of red, white, and blue. Because they love to make things easy o us parents. I struggled a bit with the royal theme. I would have loved to have dressed her as a corgi (too hard, & I thought (wrongly) too warm for this time of year), or as the Queen (as she is today, but where would I get one of those dress coats and matching hats and handbags in an age 5, and I'd still like to coordinate the look with a couple of corgi puppies on a lead - too hard and beyond my sewing abilities), and then I thought of dressing her up as the Queen as she looked when she was 5 years old, but when I Googled photos of her, she just looked like any other 5 year old in a fancy dress. So I just went for a nice easy solution: Princess Orla, a crown, a sash, and a robe.

I am never sewing with crushed velveteen again. It was quite hard. I could have done with an overlocker to edge it, and I gave up completely on adding an ermine (white fake fur with black marker pen) edge to it. The sash doesn't sit right because by the time I got on to it Orla had been asleep for early 4 hours, so I couldn't fit it on her properly. I also had to sew three ribbons together for that as I couldn't get anything Jubilee themed here. I do wonder whether when we go back to the UK I will continue to make outfits for the kids or whether I shall just go back to using good old Tesco.

Anyway, in other Jubilation news: today we have been in Berlin for exactly 2 years!