WHAT IS THE SUMMER SOLSTICE?

The summer solstice marks the peak of summer and takes place on the longest day of the year, that is to say when the Sun is at its highest in the sky. In Britain and other places north of the equator, to be precise the Northern Hemisphere, this takes place on June 21. After the summer solstice the days get shorter until the winter solstice when they start to get longer again.

June 21 is called the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and simultaneously the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. Around December 21 the solstices are reversed and winter begins in the Northern hemisphere.

The summer solstice has been celebrated since ancient times and is still celebrated around the world today. 
Many people gather at Stonehenge which is believed to have been used as an important religious site by early Britons 4,000 years ago.
Here you can read an interesting article about the meaning of the summer solstice. 

II PROVA SCRITTA ESAMI DI STATO

The end of the school year has finally come about and I have been sent to a Technical Institute for the school-leaving examination  as an external teacher  -  the students there have to take tests on specific subjects, including English.

As to my students  of  5^ C Liceo Linguistico, today they had to sit for their II Prova Scritta, a Foreign Language written exam, but they had the opportunity to  decide on the English, Spanish or French language.

As usual, the English test included a text analysis, a summary and a composition, but there was a choice between an article about sealing your love with a Master Lock in Paris, taken from The Wall Street Journal, Europe Edition, and a passage from The Great Gatsby by the American author Francis Scott Fitzgerald, a love story  set in the 1920s  -  a period of jazz and decadence.

Here you can download  both of them,  just in case you are curious!

MISS AUSTEN REGRETS

Miss Austen Regrets is a BBC-produced drama film  that depicts the last years of Jane Austen's life. Approaching her fortieth birthday, Jane Austen appears happily unmarried and displays all the assured wit and charm of her novels' young heroines. Yet when asked to help her young niece, Fanny Knight, find a husband, her confident composure is threatened. She finds herself looking back on her potential suitors and the choices she has made.

Born the daughter of an English Anglican minister in 1775, she died in 1817 at age forty-one, unmarried  and poor; she left us with six completed novels acclaimed by many to be literary perfection.

Traditional views on Jane Austen's love life vary, and little evidence still exists today to support much of a story. What we know survives from her personal letters and family recollections of a quiet 18th century life, spent  in privacy and decorum. Apart from the one known proposal by Harris Bigg-Wither, no other known love affairs were documented. Unfortunately, much of Jane Austen's personal correspondence, that could have supplied more private details, was destroyed after her death by her sister Cassandra. From what we know, the question surrounding Jane Austen's life is how an individual with little personal experience of romance and love could write with such understanding about the nature of the human heart.

In this speculative tale, director Jeremy Lovering and screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes look into the motives why the real Jane Austen never found her own Mr. Darcy.

Now let’s watch the trailer of this beautiful film, graced with an excellent   performance by Olivia Williams. 

60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE QUEEN'S CORONATION

The Queen has joined 2,000 guests for a service at Westminster Abbey to mark 60 years since her Coronation.

Some of those who took part in the 1953 service were among the congregation. Inside the abbey, several generations of the  royal  family waited: the Queen's son, Prince Charles, now in his 60s, and next in line to the throne, and her grandson, Prince William, second in line, with his pregnant wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, who is due to give birth to yet another royal heir next month.

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron - the 12th to serve under Queen Elizabeth - gave the reading to all the guests gathered at the abbey.

Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Rev Justin Welby said the event honoured "60 years of commitment".

Several key items from the Coronation were placed in Westminster Abbey for the service.

They included the heavy, solid gold St Edward's Crown, displayed on the High Altar – it hasn’t been out of  the Tower of London since 1953. Beside it was the Ampulla, the gold, eagle-shaped bottle from which the holy oil was poured for the Queen's anointing. The Coronation Chair, one of the oldest pieces of English furniture still in use, was also on show.

Here you can watch a beautiful video of the 1953 Coronation ceremony!

JUNE