Sunday Snaps #12 - A Royal Occasion

Happy Easter everyone! Yes, it's been over a year but Sunday Snaps is back by popular demand!!

The holidays are coming thick and fast right now here in England. It’s a four day weekend for a lot of people this week, with Good Friday and Easter Monday being public holidays and then next weekend will also be a four day break with the Monday being the May Day bank holiday. Friday is, of course, also a public holiday here because of the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. So, for the sake of 3 days leave you can actually have an 11 day break from work! Lovely Jubbly!

As Dori mentioned on her blog a little while ago, the day of the Royal Wedding is also our 5th wedding anniversary and, by happy coincidence, we had arranged to be in London next weekend anyway. So we will spend a great deal of our special day on the streets of the capital enjoying the ambience of the royal occasion. Whether we will actually get to see much remains to be seen, but it is really the atmosphere of the day that we are looking forward to.

We have already seen pretty much all of the royals, including William and Kate – though they were on a break at the time! The first time that we saw William and Harry (and Kate) was at the Concert for Diana back in 2007 on what would have been Diana’s 46th birthday. Here are a couple of snaps we took that day, including one of Harry taken on a mobile phone through a pair of binoculars – hence the very poor quality!

We caught most of the rest of the family at Trooping the Colour in 2009, which I blogged about at the time. It was a little surreal to see them all lined up on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, just as I have seen dozens of times before on TV. Here are a couple of snaps from that day too.

If we do get to see anything of interest on Friday then we will no doubt share that with you here on our blogs. If we don’t then we will just enjoy our wedding anniversary together just as the nation goes wedding crazy!

It promises to be an interesting week.

Pomp and Pageantry Plus!

Well, what a day we had on Saturday. As I mentioned a while back, we were going up to London to see the Queen’s Birthday Parade, or Trooping the Colour. We raised ourselves at (almost) the crack of dawn in order to catch an early train into London. The one good thing about travelling at that time of day is that there is much less traffic on the roads! Anyway, the train journey into London went by quite quickly, and before we knew it we were at Paddington Station.

Thankfully the tube strike earlier this week did not last until the weekend, so we hopped onto a tube train to take us to Westminster. It is a great tube station to exit from, because as you do so immediately in front of you is the Houses of Parliament – it is a magnificent scene. Turning right as we came out of Westminster Underground Station, we headed towards St James’s Park. The site of the parade ground is at one end of the park, alongside Horse Guards Road. We timed our arrival perfectly as we had to wait in line for only a few minutes before the barriers were pushed aside and we all went through the security checks and then headed towards the stands.

Our seat was right at the back of one of the stands that back onto the garden of 10 Downing Street. In fact, we were right beneath the TV cameras and just along from the BBC commentary box for the event. Here’s a pic of the cameras as seen from our seats.

We were in place by about 9:20, and the parade was not due to start until 10:30, with the Queen not due on Horse Guards Parade until 11 o’clock. So, we had some time to waste, but we didn’t have the opportunity to get bored. One of the fun games I played was watching the “upper classes” struggling like you wouldn’t believe to find their correct seats!! There were a good dozen or more people who had to move because they had incorrectly identified their seats – I mean, how hard can it be? ;-) They have clearly not been to many football (soccer) matches!

We watched the parade ground being watered, and various guards taking their place at points around the parade ground. Before we knew it we could hear the first musical notes from the Massed Bands of the Guards Division as they marched onto the parade ground. And the ground very quickly filled up with the seven Foot Guards companies that were taking part, as well as the King’s Troop, the Household Cavalry and the Mounted Bands who all lined up in front of the Guards Memorial.

We heard screams coming from the route between Buckingham Palace and Horse Guards Parade, and guessed it was either Princes William and Harry or the Jonas Brothers! The two princes arrived on the ground in a horse-drawn carriage, together with their step-mother Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. After they had taken their positions within the Horse Guards building to watch the ceremony, it was time for the arrival of The Queen and Prince Philip in another carriage, followed by Prince Charles, Princess Anne and the Duke of Kent who were all on horseback in fairly spectacular uniforms.

The Trooping the Colour ceremony takes about 75 minutes from the time of the sovereign’s arrival to her departure, and that time just flew by. The Colour is the name given to the standard of the regiment, used in times past as a rallying point during battle. The Colour is trooped in front of the Guards so that they could recognize it during any such battle. It is an even more amazing spectacle in real-life than it is on TV, and we were both marvelling at how well organized and directed it all was.

After the ceremony was completed, involving much marching back and forth, playing of regimental music and horses drawing artillery guns around the parade ground, the Royal party left to make their way back to Buckingham Palace. Before we knew it the parade ground was filled with people mingling as they discussed the wonderful display we had all just witnessed. Dori and I wandered on to the parade ground and took a few pictures and then decided to head over towards the Palace. The Mall is closed for the day of the Parade, and so we took the rare opportunity to stroll down the middle of the road heading to Buck House. It was a lovely, happy atmosphere and we were enjoying ourselves immensely.

As we neared the Palace, we expected the crowds to be too dense for us to progress but somehow they magically parted and we were able to make our way almost right up to the Palace gates. Just as we got there so the Royal Family emerged onto the balcony to watch the flypast by the Royal Air Force. Several aircraft flew directly down The Mall and over the Palace in salute to the Queen, including a Lancaster Bomber, a Spitfire and a Hurricane as well as more modern fighter jets such as Tornado GR4s and Eurofighter Typhoons. The flypast of 29 aircraft reached its crescendo with the Red Arrows, who trailed red, white and blue smoke as they roared over the crowds below. It was a superb finale to a wonderful day. We waved as the Royal Family moved back inside the Palace and then headed away to get something to eat before we returned home.

I mentioned to Dori while we were watching the ceremony that it all felt a little surreal – seeing something that I had grown up watching on TV and never once thought I’d ever get to see in the flesh. That surrealism was then surpassed by seeing the Royal Family waving from the Palace balcony, a scene that we have all seen many, many times before. I may have lived in England for over 40 years, but this was the first time that I have seen my monarch or many of the other members of the Royal Family (we had seen William and Harry before, at the Concert for Diana in 2007).

We got home in the evening, tired and weary from our day in London, but very happy that we had been witness to a centuries-old ceremony full of pomp and pageantry. It was a great day.

For even more pics, check out Dori's blog!

From the Yellow House to ...the Palace?

As Dori mentioned in her blog post yesterday, I have now returned to work after our wonderful anniversary celebrations last week. I never find it easy getting back into the swing of work-life again – who does?! I have heard that going back to work is a little like suffering from jetlag – your body clock has gotten used to a different timetable for a week or two, and now has to readjust to the old routine. Whether that is true or not, I do know that the first day back always seems to last twice as long as any other normal day!

Well, that was yesterday. Today I was able to escape from the office as I had a client to see in Salisbury. It is by far the best part of my job – being able to escape the confines of the office to drive amongst the glorious Wiltshire countryside. :-) I also had to deliver a new printer to a colleague who lives in a small village near to Salisbury. He works from home and asked if I could drop the printer off (not literally!) when I was in the area. It was interesting to see how he had arranged his workspace separate from his living area. Dori and I hope to be working from home ourselves in the future, so I was keen to pick up some tips from somebody who is already treading that path. My colleague said that he didn’t miss the commute at all, and that he saved hundreds on fuel alone. Less time dealing with crazy traffic, and environmentally friendly to boot!

When I returned home, Dori greeted me excitedly with some great news. You may remember that I mentioned in my post on April 19th, that we sent off an item of post that I would elaborate on once we had received the reply. Well, today we did receive that reply – tickets for next month’s Trooping the Colour. For those that don’t know, Trooping the Colour is the Queen’s official birthday parade and takes place every year on one Saturday in June. Her Maj is one of the few people who get to celebrate two birthdays, her real one (in April) and an official one in June. Trooping the Colour is a military ceremony, performed by soldiers of the Household Division in their famous red and black uniforms and bearskin helmets. The troops are inspected by the Queen, and other members of the Royal Family either take part in the parade, or watch the ceremony along with other dignitaries and members of the public. And this year, those members of the public will include Dori & Brit Boy!!

You can watch the procession from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade by turning up on the day and securing a position along The Mall. But, in order to be in the stands on Horse Guards Parade and to get to watch the ceremony itself, you must have tickets. We did some research a few months ago and found that these tickets are partly allocated by means of a public ballot, and so we gave it a go and were amazed when we got the letter to say we had been successful. There is a dress code for those of us that are in the stands, so I will have to root around in the wardrobe to see where I left my suit! Dori is also making plans for what she will wear. We are both very excited by this opportunity and I am sure that we will both be sharing many memories and pictures with you all after the event.

This year’s Trooping the Colour takes place on June 13th.