Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I reviewed Saving Mr. Banks, a movie about the making of the film version of Mary Poppins. Tina reviewed The Rumor set in a small town in England. Jean read a book of essays by Alan Garner that she enjoyed more than his novel — The Voice That Thunders includes descriptions of the Cheshire countryside and information about the Cheshire language, history, and folklore. Nan shared a charming photo of the queen and her three successors to the throne. Mae read two books back-to-back (Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner and Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart) about single women living in English villages.

I don’t have time or topic for my British Isles Friday post, so I’m going to write something quickly, stream of consciousness, and look forward to what every one else shares this week.

I’m ignoring the kerfuffle about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, aka Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. I first heard the news on NPR that they were stepping backing from royal duties to split time between Canada and the UK. In typical NPR-fashion, it was reported as straight-up news and that’s how I took it. I wasn’t aware for several days that it was a big topic of conversation and, possibly, conflict (or maybe that part is all blown up by the media). By that point, I decided that I was happier just seeing it as an interesting development in the royal family and not something I was going to dig into deeply enough to develop any opinion.

Speaking of the royal family, I got a kick out of a couple of passages in Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming, about the Queen. The stories are funny and heart-warming interactions between women thrust into roles that they didn’t choose and how they bonded over that.

The 2009 visit by President Obama and the First Lady to Buckingham Palace

What are you thinking about related to the British Isles today — involving the royal family or not?