God Save the Queen

Having successfully applied on the New Zealand House website between 8.59am and 9.03am on the appointed day approximately 4 months ago, we received in the mail (to the incredulity of various English co-workers) a highly sought after ticket to the third of of this year's three Royal Garden Parties at Buckingham Palace [credit for shamelessly copying the idea of using a photo of the invitation goes to geandhw.blogspot.com].

While I had harboured ideas of swanning about the Palace lawns in the sunshine, the weather had other ideas. However, after standing in a half-hour queue in the rain with other guests in their finery to make it through the Palace front gates, we eventually made it out onto the lawn to enjoy brass bands, tea and cucumber sandwiches as well as Sandringham apple juice, Dundee cake and many other delights, despite the ever-present drizzle.

The Queen, Prince Charles, Camilla and Princess Anne were all doing their duty meeting the honoured guests (not us) and we duly filed into the roped off areas to watch them pass by. Unfortunately amateur paparazzi shots were not encouraged and so we had to disappear into the Palace gardens to get a shot of us in our finery - keeping an eye out for security and the odd roaming Yeoman warder.

All in all a most delightful afternoon!

M