Monday 16 May 2016

Memorandum Monday: Once in a Lifetime Treat

Good Morning to Sian and everyone else on this beautiful May Monday morning. I am feeling a little blurry eyed this morning having not got to bed until nearly 3 in the morning but believe me it was worth it. Brian and I treated ourselves to a once in a lifetime experience yesterday which we have had booked since last November. We travelled to Windsor to see the Queen's 90th Birthday Pageant and what an amazing experience it was. Believe me if you saw this on the television it is nothing like seeing it live. There was so much happening in every part of the arena and stage it was totally absorbing.
I took a few pictures to give a flavour of the event which I am pleasantly surprised at the results. This does of course allow for low light, heads, arms and pillars. The first few show the troops gathering to welcome Her Majesty.




She was preceded by Prince Charles  and the Duchess of Cornwall. 


Then The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh arrived by carriage.


Perhaps one irritation at this stage was the press. Our seats were directly opposite The Royal Box and by an aisle. A handful of press photographers settled themselves on the steps by us with their huge lenses. They then proceeded to talk to each other speculating  as to who the guests in The Royal Box were and what they were wearing. The plus side was that I could glance over their shoulders and see the most remarkable close ups in their camera screens particularly of The Duchess of Cambridge (no surprise there). Fortunately they were shuffled out as the real action commenced. 
Here is a small taster of what we saw. I could have taken more but I wanted to totally take in every minute. The Coronation.


The Royal Cavalry of Oman.


The Fijian Armed Forces Band and Dancers.


The Queen's horses.



Highland Games and dancing.


A very special birthday cake.


The finale with Shirley Bassey singing Diamonds are for Ever.


Her Majesty leaves to waves, cheers and waving flags. This flag particularly badly placed!


We returned to our coach (not horse driven!) feeling totally satisfied with the floodlit Windsor Castle looking down on us and imagining that Her Royal Highness had already reached home for her evening cocoa!


We have many lasting memories that we have brought home with us.
















9 comments:

  1. what an amazing pageant to see live - I do so enjoy the atmosphere of a live event. Have a great week

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  2. What a fantastic experience, well worth the bleary eyes today. We Brits are very good at this sort of pageantry, aren't we.

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  3. Oh, wow! Seriously a once in a lifetime amazing experience. And now I get to say I know someone who was there :) The Queen looked as if she was having a wonderful time from the shots of her on tv. Your pictures are wonderful and I bet you are going to be talking about it all week

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  4. What a wonderful experience! We don't see that kind of pageantry here very often.

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  5. Lucky you to be able to attend live such a marvelous celebration. All those horses are so groomed, makes me want to get back to the barn to give Bob another brushing! Thankfully as Canadians we do get a lot of our pomp & circumstance from our British roots who rule in pageantry!

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  6. Lucky you! And great seats to boot! I saw bits of it on the TV - now I wish I'd paid more attention.

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  7. What a wonderful celebration and great to be a part of it! Good advance planning!

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  8. Wow! What a spectacle that must have been.

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  9. That does look like it was quite a spectacle. How nice that they really went all out for the celebration, I often think we need to spend more time celebrating than we do.

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