The changing of the guards …..

Friday 14th October

Well last night was an early night for us and this morning was a sleep-in – we got up at 7 am instead the usual 6 am or earlier!!

As we weren’t able to see the changing of the guards when we visited Buckingham Palace with Shaun, we decided to go there again today. We set off in the tube and got out at St James Park and walked through the gardens which are really beautiful. There were squirrels running around everywhere. Some of them were tame and came right up to us looking for food, striking all sorts of poses, so we managed to take a couple of photos of them. There were also a large number of ducks and birds as we walked along the paths. Eventually we came to Buckingham Palace and asked a bobby where is the best place to see everything. He said, right here! So we were behind the statue of Queen Victoria at the traffic lights that lead down to the Mall. The guards came close enough to us that I could almost pat the horses, so we got a good view of the guards going in and the guards going out. The whole procedure took well over an hour and was very colourful.

While we were waiting for the guards to come past, we saw a big maroon Rolls Royce go into the Palace and about 15 minutes later it came out with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh in it and they headed down the Mall right in front of us!! The Queen waved as she went past, but it all happened too quickly for me to get a photo of her! Jill was delighted that she had actually got to see the Queen!! (I was too, but wouldn’t admit that to her!).

It was now lunchtime, so we called into a nearby cafe and of all the places to call into in London we found a group from our tour, also lunching there. London isn’t so big after all!!

This afternoon we came back to the apartment to start on the blog before we forget too many details.