THIS IS MY LIFE: LIVING THE DREAM

I am leaving London. There, I said it! Like all good things, my time in London is coming to an end. I could quite easily stay here forever. I have gotten so comfortable here and made a great group of friends which I am going to miss. Not to mention leaving the kids. I never thought I would get as attached to them as I have done over the past year.

The Queen celebrated Trooping the Colour on Saturday the 13th June. It is a ceremony performed by regiments of the British and Commonwealth armies where they are inspected by the Queen. It has been a tradition of British infantry regiments since the 1820, and it also marks the official birthday of the British sovereign.

The Queen travels down the Mall from Buckingham Palace to the Horse Guards Parade, in procession with her escort of the Household Cavalry. After recieving a royal salute, she inspects her troops, both foot and horse guards. The guards perform a march past the Queen to the beat of the drums and pipers of the foot guard bands.

They then all return to Buckingham Palace and the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family stands on the balcony to watch the Royal Air Force flypast, following a 41-gun salute buy the troops in Green Park. Katie and I went to watch this amazing event, but there was so many people there that we couldn't see much!

Kayla and I escaped London one sunny Saturday and spent the day in Brighton. It was so nice to see the ocean again and get my feet wet. The beach however is covered in small stones so not very comfortable to walk on or lay down. There was so many seagulls and one sat on my head and stole my sandwich out of my hand!

We spent most of the day on the Pier which was full of fair rides. We brought a wrist band meaning we could have unlimited rides for the whole day. We ended up doing all of the rides three times each and had a lot of fun - we were both really brave. My favourite ride was one where you sat in one of the arms and the whole thing spun round as well as going up and down.

We also visited the aquarium which had turtles, stingray and sharks. We went on a glass bottom boat and watched the animals swim under us. It was a nice day trip to get out of the city and explore somewhere new!

I experienced the once in a lifetime oportunity of sitting on "The Hill" AKA "Murray Mound" at Wimbledon to watch the Mens Championship Finals between Novak Djkovic and Roger Federer. After waking up at 4.45am and arriving at the end of the queue at 6am, Katie and I recieved our Queue Cards. We were 553rd and 554th in the queue. It was pouring with rain and we were huddled up together wearing shorts and raincoats, sharing a plastic bag to sit on while we waited for the gates to open at 10am! It's moments like this where I question my sanity!

Five hours later, finally reaching the front of the queue and going through airport type security, we managed to buy our tickets and rush to get a good spot to watch the match. We then had another three hours to wait until 2pm when the Championship Match began. We decided to lie down and have a short nap, which proved more comfortable than anticipated as the rain had stopped and it was reasonably warm.

One drink down and eight hours since arrival, the match finally started. Katie was desperate for Djkovic to win but I really didn't mind either way. Djkovic won the first set and Federer the second. We then decided to have some Pimms (a Wimbledon tradition), which was really nice, a lot nicer than the premixed cans you can buy.

The match lasted three and a half hours, with only one rain scare. Much to Katie's delight Djkovic won his 7th Grand Slam title, three sets to one. We then watched the presentation ceremony on the hill and when that finished, we raced around to watch Djkovic hold out the trophy from the balcony and finally walk across the bridge to a well earned feast. 13 hours after we arrived, we finally left Wimbledon, wet and cold.

"Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive.” - Elbert Hubbard

I hope this has inspired you.

LARISSAJODEE x

#friends #celebrationsandevents #lifestyle #travel