VE Day.

 Today has been sunny and extremely hot. 

The national lockdown put an end to the many events planned to celebrate VE Day, 75 years since the war was declared over. Even so there have been many lockdown adapted events. For us and many others the day began with a 2 minute silence to remember those who fought for freedom. From what we could see on-line people were asked to stand outside their front doors for this but disappointedly we were unable to see anyone else joining in though our neighbour, returning home stood for the rest of the time when we quietly reminded her about the time. It wasn't a very silent time as one of our older neighbours was out strimming his front lawn something he rarely does. Not sure if he was unaware, couldn't care or even making a pointed protest. 

There were lots of commemorative programmes on TV including Churchill's speech (my views about him  somewhat changed when I heard how he opposed free healthcare for everyone ie. the NHS), but we didn't watch them. Instead we went out at 3.00 to raise a toast to 'those who fought for us' and then joined our neighbours for a lockdown style street party. The two families with children had put up bunting and balloons and all dressed up in red, white and blue for an afternoon of sitting in their front gardens chatting and watching the children play. We and our next door neighbours also dressed up, I had a blue and white top, blue shorts and red ribbon pinned around my straw hat. We then sat out in our front gardens, enjoyed some cold drinks (diet coke fore me) soaked up the sun and chatted the afternoon away. Right until it was time to cook our respective dinners.

 This evening we were treated to a very pretty sunset, several shades redder than the photos.

The photo below is from yesterday. At first I thought the vertical cloud was a con trail but it looked far too wide and ended in a squiggle. The one on the right looked more like it was one of a series of clouds so who knows?

Must add an apology to Boots re the information leaflet. I had a second box of the same capsules with a leaflet in.