I’M feeling all Jubileed out. How about you? Sitting in a queue of traffic staring at the wrong side of the Pennines last Saturday, the Queen’s bit of a do hadn’t crossed my mind.

Pity really. For as the car ground to a halt, I suddenly realised that many people were more than ready for the off. And I wasn’t.

While her majesty might have been motoring along the Epsom Downs heading for the start of the Derby and the beginning of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations, others were cantering towards the finishing post – in Lancashire at least.

I’d strayed into the neighbouring county looking for a replacement wisteria. And no, you don’t need to know.

Safe to say that the wisteria is still missing but the spectacular blue flag iris I bought instead did at least look as if I was trying. Flag-waving, if you see what I mean.

I hadn’t intended to come over all monarchist but what else was there to do when I realised that what had just driven us to a standstill was not roadworks but a procession.

Not that it was bubbling over with party spirit. There was plenty of red, white and blue being waved, thanks largely to a sneaky breeze. But perhaps this pianissimo parade had been on the march even earlier than I’d suspected and everyone was by now clean out of hurrahs.

There was a band that didn’t play, majorettes who didn’t march or twirl and floats that looked like, well, like everyday wagons where the only decorations had been made by someone who had run amok with a pair of scissors, sticky tape and a large brown cardboard box.

Admittedly it was chilly, grey and the lack of enthusiasm may have been because they had all sussed that this was just the start of a very long wet weekend. For my friend who was driving, it certainly was.

Even a pair of friendly bobbies couldn’t tell us how to escape and while I was happy to sit and remember old Sunday School processions which were much livelier and noisier than this, she tuned into Five Live only to discover there wasn’t much to cheer on the sporting front either.

Sunday looked a better prospect altogether. Operation picnic got underway and with a former naval man at my elbow to fill in the historic ships bit, we settled down to watch the flotilla in the mist.

For that’s what it turned into. The BBC (my broadcaster of bad choice) was partly responsible.

Later one of its bigwigs defended the coverage and said problems were down to the wrong conditions. So it rained?

From where I was sitting, this was a diamond that so nearly turned into a dud. I put it down to a lack of homework not typical British weather.

Sad though I may be, I don’t like being talked at when I can see things for myself on the screen. What I long for (particularly during pomp and circumstance events) is for an expert to tell me what isn’t blatantly obvious, to fill in the detail of which on most occasions, and particularly State occasions, there is an awful lot.

So thanks Matt Baker, I kind of know the Queen is historic and don’t really want to ponder about the toilet arrangements for all those people bobbing about on boats.

What I would have liked was more about the Venetian gondoliers, about the Maoris and their war canoe, the stories that the Dunkirk boat owners and those ringing their way along the Thames on a belfry boat surely had to tell.

I’d have liked to hear more of the music, heard more about Garrison Sgt Major Bill Mott, said to have the loudest voice in the British Army, and to know much much more about the history and symbolism that oozed out of the screen like well-squeezed toothpaste. Just without the zing of expert flavour.

But the good old Beeb? Well instead of dishing up a dependable Tom Fleming or even a Dimbleby, we had celebrity presenters jiving in the park, others repeatedly telling us this was an art bridge in a soggy, runny-paint sort of tone and tons more of them telling us generally what a good time they were having but little or nothing about what we could see around them.

Clare Balding, bless her, actually knew the names of the rowers on the magnificent Gloriana, the royal row barge. But most of her colleagues seemed to be having a blissful awayday where sharing information wasn’t part of the script.

Thank goodness then for the camera teams who at least provided some cracking images before the mist of irritability (and the dreadful weather) swept in.

My silent best moments were of the Queen arriving to board the launch taking her to the Spirit of Chartwell from which she was to watch the flotilla clutching what look like a towel but turned out (equally sensibly) to be a wrap.

And of her and Prince Philip bobbing about to a jolly Sailor’s hornpipe grinning merrily at each other.

Of Joey, the horse puppet from War Horse, cantering across the roof of the National Theatre and rearing in salute.

Of the rain plastered faces of singers from the Royal College of Music Chamber Choir who sang resolutely on with water dripping off their noses.

Of the royal barge Gloriana, inspired by 18th century barges painted by Canaletto and crewed by modern day Olympic heroes and gold medallists Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Matthew Pinsent alongside British servicemen injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Memorable images? Certainly. Memorable words? Certainly not from the BBC, but thankfully from our newspapers later. So long may they also reign!