Very excited. Received a call this morning that I would be invited to attend the Tree Planting ceremony at Rideau Hall on Wednesday, where Her Majesty would be...of course...planting a tree. Sure enough, the invitation arrived. To meet The Queen once in a lifetime is wild enough, but twice! I am over the moon. This event will require a hat and I have one I plan to wear. Not a huge brim in case I block someone's view, but lots of plumes and feathers. There is quite an article in the local newspaper about wearing hats to meet The Queen. I also googled "hat etiquette" a while ago and learned a ton about where and when to wear them. One thing I did not know was that if The Queen is not wearing a hat, no one else can. Apparently, the hat is a substitute for The Crown, so if she has not donned her symbolic crown, no one else can trump that. Happily, she never appears without either a crown or hat during state visits. I gather the hatless rule is for those occasions when one visits her during the day at her place, Buckingham Palace, for example, and she is just wearing an old tweed skirt and cardigan. Then you will be asked to doff your hat.
Brian, being in Houston, doesn't get to go this time. Well, that's what happens when a daughter marries an American.
I have been dining out, as they say, on my original Queen-meeting story for four years; now I will have another one with which to bore people to death. Having been raised by strident monarchists, having spent lots of my childhood making scrapbooks of every visit, having waited for hours in sweltering sun with my mother and grandmother on the side of highways for a fleeting glimpse of her as she drove by...I know they are dancing up there at the prospect of their daughter again meeting the Monarch -- something neither of them had a chance to do.
So, more news at 11 on that file.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment