It is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s
Remembering the great love, admiration and respect my parents always had for Queen Elizabeth, and as many of us enjoy Paddington Bear, an iconic symbol for Great Britain, I felt the need to share the YouTube address below of a delightful video of them having a cup of tea together.
Another link here, a news report of all the celebrations.
70 years on the throne!
I also thought I would share some photos from the last time we were in London, June 2015. These are my notes.
We walked through Green Park down to Buckingham Palace. It drizzled the whole time we were out, but it was a steady drizzle and not a real bother. It certainly didn't stop the tourists, or us. That circular road in front of Buckingham Palace was blocked off to traffic because of Trooping of the Colour the day before. This enabled us to walk across to the Queen Victoria statue, which we weren't able to do last year because of the heavy traffic circling the monument. A day later the barriers were taken down and traffic was allowed to flow again.
Our photos are a good memory but a little dark.
At one point we saw the Life Guard's Regiment in their shiny helmets with white plumes and bright red overcoats (identified by blogging friend Roy - Roy's Nature Blog - thanks Roy). Their horses were gorgeous!
One more parade and I quickly took a video.
Another interesting event was to see the Changing of the Guard at St. James Palace.
They were also very smart in their bright red coats and Bearskins atop their heads, but I couldn't get that close and I was really missing my other camera. We would not have known except for a man who had set up a tripod across the narrow street, with camera trained on the gates of St. James Palace. I had asked him what was going. He said sometimes they don't appear at all but if they did it would be in about half an hour. Gregg and I decided to stay. Slowly we were joined by other spectators. We knew something was happening when three armed police officers turned up, plus two on horseback. The man with the tripod told us it would probably be a small contingency, as the Queen wasn't home. There weren't many soldiers he was correct, but they made a lovely sight.
After they had marched away we walked a few feet and stopped to read a plaque outside the Queen's Chapel.
On our way back to the hotel we stopped at Patisserie Valerie.
I ordered a coffee, Gregg a Vanilla Milkshake and we shared a Napoleon. It was crowded and we were fortunate to get a seat relatively quickly. We were both glad to sit down for a spell.
We walked up an alley, a short cut where there were a few interesting shops
.....and the second oldest pub in England.
On its doors it read, "Welcome to the Old Red Lion, reputedly the oldest license in the West End. The village pub in the heart of St. James."
One of our favorite walks has been in James Park, just down the road and we have been there every day.
The bird life is wonderful. We enjoyed them all.
The Coots were feisty little things, and just like the ones we saw in Devon, they chase everything away.
There were a lot of geese here...
and herons.
The pelicans were a gift from the Russian Ambassador in 1664, these being their descendants.
There were mounted police officers patrolling the park. We saw them often and their horses were always well groomed, absolutely beautiful and considering the crowds, very calm.
We had a three-day pass for the Hop-On-Hop Off tour company. We got off at the Tower of London but didn't go inside as it was near to closing. We figured we would go back (we didn't as we ran out of time).
We did pop into the gift shop. I bought a jacket as it was very cold, and I didn't have a warm enough coat. I was trying to keep our luggage down thinking the weather would be like last year, warm and sunny. It wasn't this time but a little weather wasn't a problem by any means. Far too many interesting sights to see.
We love the city and have found everyone to be very polite. Even when one cabby yelled at Gregg, in a relatively polite fashion, (we got swept up in the swarm of people at one traffic light) "Oye mate, the little red man means don't cross!" In such crowds at all traffic lights I just held on to the back of Gregg's belt, tried really hard not to close my eyes and crossed my fingers. City traffic can be very intimidating when you are not used to it.
Today we started our daily walk in James Park and eventually found ourselves in Parliament Square. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.
We saw the Changing of the Guard again in Whitehall. Thanks to blogging friend Roy - thanks again Roy - I now know that these are from the Blues and Royals Regiment.
Very impressive, all the shiny armor glinting in the sun, and their handsome jet black horses.
And there my friends is a little bit of England from our last trip several years ago now. I hadn't thought about it until I put Queen Elizabeth and Paddington Bear here at the top of my post, and decided to go back into my archives.
And as Paddington so reverently said,
“Thank you Your Majesty, for everything!” And that's also from my Mum and Dad, who would also say, "God Save The Queen" as they toasted her good health.
If you remember this from years ago, I hope it will still be enjoyable.
Enjoy your day and have a great week.
