What A Day!!

I arrived at an eerily deserted and quiet Paddington at 5:15am. After so long sat down on the train I walked the streets around the station for an hour to stretch my legs before returning for a coffee. I thought about going for a cooked breakfast before making my way to Green Park but some sixth sense told me to go straight over. I arrived at Green Park around 7:00am and went through the security checks relatively easily and it was not until I paused for breath that I realised that I was an hour early and had got in with the security team.

An hour on a park bench reading and I noticed others were now waiting at the check point, I joined them an began an hours wait to be admitted. As I waited I glanced occasionally behind me as the queue built up. One of the security team told us that it stretched through Green Park, out onto Piccadilly, past the Ritz and almost at Fortnum & Masons.
08:15 and we were in, I collected a box meal and a couple of bottles of water and took my seat in the grandstand. Over the next hour or two we chatted amongst ourselves as the spectacle gradually unfolded.
Trooping The Colour, long on my ‘Bucket List’, and at last I was here and for the Platinum Jubilee one as well. No Queen until a balcony appearance for the fly past but still a great day. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, glorious sunshine, good company and watching something that only the British can do. How the Guards coped in those tunics in that heat I have no idea but they looked splendid as did they all. One part I particularly liked was at the end as the police, with arms linked and a crowd of tens of thousands behind them, walked slowly down the Mall bringing that mass of people onto Victoria Roundabout and outside the gates of Buckingham Palace for the balcony appearance.

The huge crowds meant that it was a waste of time trying to get back to Paddington the way I came so I walked to Victoria and caught the tube there. The 4:30pm train to Truro meant I arrived at around 8:30pm where Mrs S delivered me home. A shower, coffee and sandwich before some much needed sleep.