Well.....there was a bit of a do today in Thame.
RAF Halton were to have an inaugral freedom of Thame parade through the town....complete with royal visitor. So there we all were, local children and some local residents (not many I have to say)....lining the streets in anticipation.
Excitement mounted as the band came along but then they turned off before they got to us? From then on for about an hour or so it was like watching paint dry, not much to see at all....as the ceremony bit was happening outside the town hall which we couldn't see....plus the dignatory speeches could not be heard as the tannoy system didn't seem to be working properly (bit of a cock up really). The most entertaining thing that happened during that hour was when the now very bored, very cold and underwhelmed school children spotted their recently retired headmaster and gave him a popstar welcome.....(embarrasingly far more enthusiastically than our royal visitor) who they/we could not see from where they were standing anyway. For a moment, all the dignatories were distracted from their pomp and ceremony and appeared to be wondering who or what was causing all the excitement down our end!lol
In the end, the band started playing and set off in the opposite direction to where we were....so, rather bored and also decidedly underwhelmed, we made the decision that it was time to go and do something a little more constructive. But then as we began to leave, the royal visitor appeared to embark on a brief walkabout, so we finally caught sight of her. And well, yep...the royal visitor turned out to be Camilla! If you look carefully you might just see her blue hat! Someone told us that the band would be marching back again so we went back and stood where we originally were.
So I have to say that the band were superb, the RAF personnel marching past with fixed baynots looked very grand and George their goat mascot looked suitablility impressive. It was almost worth us having stood around in the freezing cold for nearly 2 hours.
I was told by a lady standing next to me that apparently George has been for ever more assigned to the back end of a parade now, due to him pooping! But he did look rather handsome in his official coat.
I have some rather lovely vintage goodies to list on the website over the next 24 hours....so watch this space!