VE Day 80 - The airshow season begins!

 

The 2025 airshow season has started nice and early this year as 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day & VJ Day. When they announced at the start of the year that there would be a flypast over London to commemorate VE Day I immediately wanted to go! Aside from my love of both aircraft and London I wanted to take part in the commemorations for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for us in World War 2. 

So on Bank Holiday Monday I headed up to London, emergency rain poncho in bag as the weather forecast suddenly changed overnight .... thankfully the weather was far better than when I went to the Coronation Flypast back in 2023 .....

Gatwick

I got to London a few hours before the flypast was due to start so decided to visit some of my favourite bookshops for some new reading material. 

Watkins Books has 2 floors of occult books 😍

I also stopped off at The Astrology Shop and my favourite shop Treadwells. With a heaving bag of books I made my way to the flypast. 

When I got there I was really excited to make it onto The Mall!

TV Crews ready to go

I felt particularly patriotic in my rain poncho ...

The rain held off and the flypast went ahead! Leading the flypast was of course the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight crown jewel, the beautiful Lancaster. 

With the BBMF's other aircraft taking part in other flypasts around the country the rest of the flypast was comprised of modern RAF types. 

Voyager & A400M Atlas

Globemaster

Poseidon & Typhoons

Rivet Joint & F35 Lightnings

The flypast ended with the Red Arrows in formation with 4 Typhoons painting the sky red, white & blue. 

You can watch the flypast on my YouTube Channel -

Later in the week Eastbourne Bonfire Society organised a beacon lighting ceremony to mark VE Day. 

Hilary and me on the Wish Tower slopes

It was a beautiful evening, perfect for the ceremony -

The Moon was also out

The procession

The beacon-lighting -

It was a lovely ceremony to commemorate the bravery of those who came before us and made me even more grateful to have the freedoms that I do and also the importance of continuing to fight for them. 

Airshow season proper carries on next month with Trooping The Colour and my first full show of the year at Duxford's summer airshow (the lineup is looking great with the Red Arrows and an Apache display I'm particularly looking forward to). 

Love Jen

XxxX

Springtime in London - Gigs & Sightseeing

 

I was lucky enough to travel up to London twice in the space of a week last month and enjoy some nice dry weather 😶

Trip 1 -

First up was my long-awaited Delilah Bon show. Those of you who read my 2024 In Music blog will remember that I listed her album 'Evil Hate Filled Female' as my favourite album of the year. 

By chance I'd come across an advert for an exhibition about an exhibition at the Warburg Institute Tarot - Origins & Afterlives and since it was free it felt rude not to pop in!

The exhibition was, as you would expect, pretty small but for tarot readers like me (or anyone interested in occult history) it was absolutely fascinating, especially this incredibly old Florentine Tarot (the city not the biscuit sadly) deck -

I was near to the British Museum so it felt rude not to visit. 

As well as finding Eos represented in the Egyptian section and the gift shop

I also found Greek pottery depicting her namesake the Goddess Eos pursuing a young gentleman 😱

I stayed at the Kings Cross Inn which was literally opposite Kings Cross & St Pancras tube stations. 

Taken from the hotel steps

For the gig I wanted to try the 'layered' look. I think a crop top over a mesh top looks so nice but being very much on the larger side I avoided it as I thought the general public didn't deserve that sight! But in the spirit of 'fuck it' I popped my Delilah top over a mesh top and skirt and yes I actually felt cute!

The show was at the London Garage a small club venue (my favourite type!)

I was really looking forward to seeing the support act Eville and they didn't disappoint. 

Anyone who plays in a Hello Kitty bikini top gets my vote!

They give me Bring Me The Horizon backing music with 'brat rock' vocals, I really hope I get to see them again soon!

Delilah was as good as I hoped she would be, her live vocals are amazing. She really is a voice badly needed right now for the LGBT community and women around the world and I hope her music spreads far and wide. 

There are loads more photos and videos on my Instagram page jenraefrancesdeux .

Trip 2 -

A few days later I was back in London to meet up with my friend Bente for the first time since 2018!

A misty morning train ride

*Insert 'Sitting On The Dock' joke here*

We took the boat (yes I got on a boat without being sea sick!) from London Bridge down to Battersea. 

You see so much more from the boat

Clearly the key to not getting sea sick is to travel on boats named after fighter jets!

Although I didn't get sick on HMS Belfast when we went and that's technically on the water!

We had an amazing breakfast at Where The Pancakes Are in Battersea Power Station. 

We worked off our breakfast with a stroll around Battersea Park. I'd only ever been there once about 10 years ago when I went to the Formula E race (Blog here) and hadn't realised how much there was there or how pretty it is. 

We particularly liked this Peace Pagoda built back in the 70s. It was particularly beautiful with the emerging blossom around it. 

It was still pretty chilly so after grabbing a cuppa we went back to Battersea Power Station. I've never been there before or after it was re-generated. 

Such an impressive building (sadly no Pink Floyd-style Flying Pig)

Inside the power station is the coolest bar called Control Room B located (you guessed it) where one of the control rooms was. They've left all the original equipment in there and have themed cocktails. I particularly enjoyed the 'Booster Field' and 'Smokestack'. 

The menu was the building blueprint

The equipment -

A well stocked bar is always a beautiful sight 😉

Enjoying some Prosecco and a Smokestack - 

All too soon it was time to head for home.

Come back soon!!!!!

I had such a lovely couple of days, London never fails to excite me and I've been lucky to have been up 4 times this year already (check out my Emo and Tim Burton blogs). I think my next trip will be for the planned VE Day flypast in May (weather permitting ......). 

Love Jen

XxxX