The Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

It's the beginning of the celebrations for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, which will last for four days. Today, she chose to kick it all off at the Epsom Derby, appropriate due to the Queen's love of horses.

The celebrations will continue tomorrow, where people around the country will be encouraged to take part in 'The Big Jubilee Lunch' (basically a way to unite neighbours - this can be a street party or a picnic. I'm gutted that my street aren't having one) and also The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant (a bunch of boats, 1000 of them, will sail up the Thames - sounds a bit weird but guaranteed to be impressive) later on in the day. The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh will be on the specially made Royal Barge for the occasion.

Moving onto Monday 4th June, the Diamond Jubilee Concert will take place outside of Buckingham Palace (put together by Gary Barlow of Take That, I believe - also televised by the BBC) where a seriously good line up will perform, including Dame Shirley Bassey, Sir Elton John, Jessie J (for the young 'uns), Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Madness and will.i.am (who should be interesting to watch given his recent confession of relying on autotune - I'm not one to judge though, I love him) to name a few. Also on the Monday, the Queen will light the first of the Diamond Jubilee beacons.

Finally, Tuesday 5th June, the celebrations will come to an end with the Queen attending a service at St Paul's Cathedral followed by a couple of receptions, a spot of lunch at Westminster Hall, a carriage procession to Buckingham Palace with an appearance on the famous balcony, an RAF fly past (which is always cool to see) and finally a "Feu de Joie from the Forecourt. This is a celebratory cascade of rifle fire given as a salute by The Queen’s Guard, interspersed with the National Anthem played by the Band of the Irish Guards." I had to take that quote from a website, I genuinely had no idea what a 'Feu de Joie' was.

After that rather lengthy brief of the four day weekend, I'm going to get to the point and say why I'm posting this blog (on the new Mibba, which has confused me a hell of a lot - not to worry, I'll get used to it).

To put it bluntly, I love the Queen and our royal family. I understand why some people may resent the fact that we have a Monarchy but come on, it's not like she's been sat in the Palace all day doing nothing. The Queen has been through a lot during her 60 year reign (her ascension to the throne came quite suddenly while she was away on a tour of Australia and New Zealand on behalf of her father, King George VI, whose health had declined. The news of her beloved father's death came to her while she was in Kenya - she never made it to Australia and New Zealand) and she's one of two British monarchs to celebrate a Diamond Jubilee (Queen Victoria before her also managed the amazing feat). Can you imagine becoming a Queen at the tender age of 25, with two small children to look after? Personally, I think she's handled the whole thing remarkably well and during her whole 60 years as Queen, she's never put a foot wrong in my eyes (obviously I haven't been around all that time, I'm only 19 but you'd think that if she did do something horribly wrong, the country wouldn't stop bringing it up and I'd have heard of it by now).

So, to wrap up, I just want to say here's to another good few years under Queen Elizabeth II's reign. I'm sure she will continue to never let us down.

God Save the Queen.