Her brother read very well, with suitable pauses so you could grasp what he had said and ponder. He is in cake-making.
We printed off the programme from the BBC website - first time. It was just like being in the audience except I prefer watching TV as you see close-ups, though people in Hyde Park saw everything in detail on big screens.
Now she's royal we're told she must be addressed no longer as Kate but Catherine - such a pity. I think Kate is sounds friendlier and unique. One day maybe Queen Kate, or Queen Catherine? We got to know her as Kate.
I watched the lovely clothes, the colourful hats of the guests. the queen in yellow. Were the other guests told not to wear yellow - nor white. The train-bearer wore white, a simple right long dress, also very elegant.
The members of the public in the crowd were good-humoured. I loved the hat made by a man who did not even speak good English but had gone to enormous trouble to create a hat with photos downloaded from the web, even a motor cycle because William likes bikes. Many people - at least those followed by the camera, had painted their faces with union Jacks or red white and blue. The lookalike couple were entertaining, so was the man wearing the William mask.
We were watching the BBC website in our kitchen-diner on both a laptop and a monitor. When the BBC website went down we had to transfer to the living room and watch the old-fashioned way on armchairs in front of a TV. I'd just been thinking, time to get rid of the TV because we never watch it, when it came in handy, more than handy, essential.
After lunch the websites were running again so we were able to watch intermittently whilst clearing away lunch and having coffee.
The patriotic theme of the crowds in London inspired me so after 3 pm I started planning dressing up in red, white and blue for Hatch End's High street event. I needed a red dress and a co-ordinating hat with a Union Jack. I looked in my dressing up box which contains only half the props I use for my speeches at Toastmasters (wigs, angel wings, witches' hats for hallowe'en). The Union Jack hat was not there but I found an England hat from the last football event. Red and white. So off with the blue dress, on with a red dress. By now it is gone 4 pm but overcast and will anybody bother to go? I was just about to hunt for an umbrella - when the sun came out.
Suddenly I could hear people hurrying past the house. Parents calling to their children who were racing ahead, excited laughter. I was missing the party!
The banners had been along the railing all week saying there would be entertainment and free food from 4 pm until 6 pm. Amazingly, on previous occasions street events had attracted few numbers, mostly inside restaurants and just around the doorways. But this time everybody had had the day off as it was a bank holiday and by 4.30 the pavements were full like Oxford Street at sale time.
I stopped one girl to ask where she'd bought her souvenir flag. She was from a local school and had had the day off. She and her family got up at 6 am to go to London and watch the wedding which started at 11 am - which meant crowds outside as well as those with invitations to Westminster driving or walking up and assembling at least half and hour or an hour earlier.
An amazing number of VIP's were associated with Westminster Abbey, some honoured with burials there. Characters you hear about in history books. Edward I buried there. People from Shakespeare plays. Henry IV. Churchill. Many more. You'd think after all these centuries the management would have run out of space on the walls and underground. Maybe we could make room for you, me and our aunty Flo, if we shoved up Edward, who by now is only bones, the way they do in the New Orleans cemetery. (There I took a guided tour during which guides gleefully tell you how their ancestors coped with huge numbers of bodies during plaques and wars).
Free Food
Even doing nothing but watch TV makes you hungry and thirsty because thinking uses up calories. (Yes, some researcher somewhere recently tested and proved this theory.) So I aimed for the entrances of restaurants, but the crowd was densest there and lines for the free food stretched up and down the street. The plates of free food arrived and a melee of the first 20 people cleared the plate in half a minute.
How To Beat Queues
Families queued patiently. The British are so well-behaved. Although I will wait patiently for most things, such as tickets, when it comes to food, which has already run out on most tables, as I don't drink red wine or Coca Cola anyway, it seemed silly to queue for an hour and then find food had run out or the offering was spicy food I can't eat and colas or wines I can't drink. So I raced to the front to see if it was worthwhile queuing. I had kept hold of my plastic drinking glass and discovered a new trick. While everybody is waiting for a fresh supply of plastic glasses and plates, I could ask the second person on the table for a teeny refill in my glass.
At Sea Pebbles, famous, in Hatch End, for fish and chips, I was able to grab a single chip, or two, or three, and put it in my plastic glass. The fish was in batter and small strips so that was too much batter and it could have been shellfish which I'm allergic to.
Because I had not had the fish, I reasoned, of course both the fish and chip shop and the God who watches dieters would have allowed me another chip.
I succumbed to the temptation to ask for a sausage. (When the queue had come to a standstill.) I should not eat sausages. We (my family) are on an avoid cancer and lose weight diet. But the sausage was so good I had another. (Dear family, if you are reading this, of course I didn't. Only joking. I swear I only had one. Well, maybe two, but they were small, very thick but half size. If you are not on a diet, I recommend the sausages.)
Another Way To Beat The Queue
Trevor, an impatient person who is never willing to queue, under any circumstances, unlike me, came up with an even better ruse. He went to the table where things were going to slowly while the server held a conversation with each person, got another spoon from the table or inside the restaurant, and appointed himself as volunteer server.
He speeded up the operation by serving twenty people until he had got tired and the queue was at least much shorter. Seeing the food about to run out, he served himself the last portion. He went on his merry way, having got himself free food. He also probably ingratiated himself with friends and acquaintances in the crowd as well as the restaurant management. Call it chutzpah, call it initiative, call it one-upmanship.
I found the mayor and said hello. Where is a photographer when you need one? I also had a cordial conversation with Councillor Lammerman on the topic of potlholes in our roads.
I spoke to Mo, one of the brothers running Hatch End Tandoori. The chief smiler at Casa Mia gave me a smile, a nod and a wink. I saw two neighbours. I watched a street entertainer with packs of cards entertaining children who clamoured to take a card. He had a wooden duck and said it was worth it's weight in wood. I didn't laugh out loud but I thought he was most amusing. And he'd collected a crowd large enough to block most of the pavement and the slip road.
The sweet sensations karaoke tent was inviting children to sing. It was like a version of Hatch End's Got Talent. (The competition previously organized by Wetherspoon's pub Moon & Sixpence. ) The children who volunteered were given flags. I was standing watching when the organizer sang her closing song. She beckoned me forward.
The litter bins were overflowing with plastic plates. Showing that a good time had been had by all. The restaurants hoped that some people would stay in the area for a meal after 6 pm. I think every visitor must have had learned about at least one new business, or been reminded of a restaurant. We had made a promise to one or two restaurants that we would be back soon.
