A long day

I guess like most of the country, from all walks of life, and a multitude of locations, we spent almost all day watching the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ll. It was a long, tiring day, with our eyes glued to the small caravan television screen, only purchased Friday specifically for this occasion. We began watching from our bed, with a cup of tea at 8.30, then decided we needed to get everything straight before the main event at 11. We got up, had breakfast, and did a bit of packing up with it on in the background, and then watched the rest.

I don't think anyone needs me to go over it all, but it was a moving spectacular. I wish I could have been there, but in the end it was too far and too complicated, especially as the weekend had already been planned in the caravan. But great to see on TV and the campsite owners had said we could stay on until the end (we would normally have to be off site by 11). We eventually left at about 3pm. Jon drove and I tried to live stream the Windsor bit of the funeral on my phone. I had some success but it wasn't 100%. 2 hours later, we were home and I had seen most of it, by repeatedly winding it back. I will probably watch the end tomorrow again on catchup. Its interesting that this year we visited Windsor for the first time - by chance, and have been up to Buckingham Palace and Sandringham in the last 12 months. So I feel a trip to Balmoral is in order, to complete the set. I'm adding it to the 'must go in the caravan' list.

So this is the end of an era indeed. Everything feels quite flat - I feel like we missed out on the wake after such a colourful but draining day. I do hope the Royal family now get some privacy, and time to grieve.

We have had a lovely short break away. I had only just started to relax into it, when the break was over. It's back to work tomorrow. But at least it's a short week.