| April 29th 2011 |
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Royal Wedding!
Went into town today to catch the Royal Wedding. Great day. Fantastic atmosphere!
I arrived in Whitehall at 7.30 am. It was very quiet on the way in. Got the tube from South Kensington. Not many people around, two empty buses passed me, tube was quiet. Westminster tube station was pretty quiet too. Was a bit suprised when I hit Whitehall to see the number of people who had got there before me. Not mobbed but every front row space was taken. On the previous day I had only seen one group of people camping out, so expected it to be quieter. Still managed to get a pretty good spot. Was between the Cenotaph and Downing street. I was on a wall at the top of some steps. At the time of writing it's a bit late and I really can't be arsed writing much! The pictures pretty much tell the story. Being at the same spot for five hours was interesting. Got to know quite a bit about the people next to me! That was part of the atmosphere, everyone excited, enjoying themself, having a laugh. When it was all over I shook the hands of the guys I had been talking to. All good stuff. In the picture of Kate and William, you will see that she has her head bowed and William is saluting. This is because they are passing the Cenotaph which is a memorial to all those killed in the Second World War. Biggest hoot of the day was before any procession arrived but a good crowd had gathered and were cheering anything that moved. A group of about half a dozen street sweepers were walking along the route doing a final tidy before the procession. They were getting a huge cheer, applause and whistling. They were initially a bit embarrassed but then began to have some fun, waving back. It was one of those cases where the more people cheered, the more others joined in and it resulted in one of the biggest cheers of the day! Real hoot. Then a couple of guys followed behind them, carrying clipboards. They looked liked supervisors of some sort. Being the Council they were probably writing feedback on the sweeping and how close it came to target and what future improvements could be made. The cheering subsided as they passed. When the final procession had passed, I went over to Buckingham Palace and saw them on the balcony, albeit from a distance. I didn't watch from the Mall. As you can see from the picture, with half a million people there the view wasn't great. I went through St James's Park and came out at the side of the palace, still a bit away but I could make them out on the balcony and noticed them kissing...twice! It helped that Prince William was wearing a bright red tunic and the Queen was wearing yellow...easier to spot! There was a fly-past of a Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster bomber. Amazing sight. Followed by modern Tornado and Typhoon jets. Fab and groovy day. Posted in categories Events People Post URL http://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=92 |
