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Not quite tomorrow…

OK, so we missed the actual tomorrow of ‘tomorrow’. But then we missed the actual Flotilla, as by the time we got to the river it was about 5 people deep and not a cat in hell’s chance of seeing anything. We got to the river via a little wander through other bits of central London which were looking rather lovely, however, which is what took us so long. Here we have Admiralty Arch, all flagged up and looking wonderful:

You may have seen this on TV over the weekend as it’s the opposite end of The Mall to Buckingham Palace. The flags there are all White Ensigns, it being (as the name suggests) an Admiralty building.

Here we have one of the Queen’s Life Guards on guard:

The horse looks a little startled there but it’s just a bad pic. The really good pic has a strange man in it who would just not stop having his photo taken and was hogging the Life Guard, so we shall ignore that. I think the horse is glaring at him in this photo.

Anyway, everywhere in London was flagged up and look as good as it could this weekend. Well, the eyes of the world were on us. Here is the Union Flag flying over Parliament:

And here is St. Stephen’s Clock Tower, which houses the Big Ben bell:

I love that pic, pixelled though it is, as it was taken off the big screen in Victoria Tower Gardens where we did, eventually, find a bit of room to see a bit of the Flotilla. Who needs Instagram, eh? A close-up shot of some of the Royal Marines:

And here are Kate, Wills and Harry arriving:

Kate’s outfit was a beautiful red, and later when on the Royal Barge some of us were heard to wonder if she’d had it Pantone-matched to the fabric used for the seats on there as it looked like she might disappear if she sat down, leaving an impression of a disembodied, smiling head – a bit Cheshire Cat-like. Well, it amused us at the time as we were a bit cold by then.

Here’s HM the Queen:

Deffo better than Instagram, that effect…

None of the actual boat pics were very good. More boat pixels. So, when it was All Over and we were leaving the Gardens in an Orderly Manner, some of the police on duty were entering into the spirit of the day, this one lovely WPC in particular obliging the lady in front of me by donning these Deely-boppers:

And so we made our way home, back up Whitehall. HM the Queen, however, must have got a bit bored of watchig the boats, as she was spotted waving to the home-going crowds on Whitehall. I never knew she had a bolt-hole there…

That Queen got lots of cheers for entertaining what by then were slightly damp as well as cold people. Prize for Best Shop Window has to go to Hamleys for this:

Lego. All Lego. How cool is that? Even if sadly un-photographable (is that a word?) without people interruptions given how busy it all was.

So there you have it, basically, a day in London over the Diamond Jubilee. Next week – News! Important News! And possibly some more Jubilee pics, because, well, why not?