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Free time is good, isn’t it? If you feel like your 2022 selves deserve more free time, there’s great news for future us: in 2022 the Queen will have been the Queen for a walloping 70 years, meaning it’ll be time to celebrate the platinum anniversary of her reign with a massive summer blowout.
The late spring bank holiday will be moved to Thursday June 2, and a new bank holiday will be added on Friday June 3 – meaning we can all spend four days straight revelling in Liz Windsor’s big day.
But getting more free time isn’t the only benefit the celebrations of the Queen’s 70-year reign will bring: there will be a pudding aspect to the jubilee. Fortnum & Mason has launched a nationwide competition in the search of the perfect new dessert to celebrate Her Majesty.
Anyone aged eight or older can participate by sending in their pudding recipes, but only five lucky finalists will have their desserts tasted by judges Dame Mary Berry, chef Monica Galetti and Her Majesty’s head chef Mark Flanagan.
The winning pud will be the star of The Big Jubilee Lunch on Sunday June 5, when streets all over the UK will be filled with bunting, massive cut-outs of the Queen and lots of cake – you know the drill.
Also happening that day is the Platinum Jubilee Pageant, which will bring together 5,000 performers at Buckingham Palace for a big old shindig with ‘street arts, theatre, music, circus, carnival and costume.’
Before we all binge on royal dessert though, there will be plenty more to mark the Queen’s jubilee – she is, after all, the first British monarch to reach platinum.
On June 2, Trooping the Colour will return in full for the first time since the start of the pandemic, with more than 1,400 parading soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians taking part. On the same day, Platinum Jubilee beacons will be lit across the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and UK Overseas Territories.
On Friday June 3, there will be a service of thanksgiving for her Maj at St Paul’s Cathedral. On the Saturday of the long weekend, the Queen and other royal family members will get together for the Derby at the Epsom Downs. In the evening, there’s going to be a massive concert at Buckingham Palace. The line-up is TBC but, y’know, it’s the QUEEN, so expect big names.
But these celebrations aren’t only about pomp and circumstance. More than 60,000 trees have already been planted in the UK as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy, an initiative that encourages the British people to ‘plant a tree for the Jubilee’.
Whether you’re a fan of the Queen or you just like having an extra day off work, a four-day weekend (with pudding) can never be a bad thing, can it?
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