I went to Buckingham Palace yesterday to watch the centennial RAF flypast and thought I’d do something I’ve never done – watch the Royal Family making a balcony appearance.
The balcony is a long way off. With binoculars perhaps I could have recognised members of the Royal Family but without bins they were indistinct. The flypast was rather thrilling and emotional. I shed tears when the Spitfires flew over. The crowd was enthusiastic, applauding the Queen, singing the National Anthem and reacting to the ‘planes with the sort of wows usually heard at fireworks.
After 1 1/2 hours standing up I thought I’d have a light lunch at the Lanesborough Hotel. A beer and two Dry Martinis later I was a new man and ready to walk home. Mastaba is breathtaking although this heron doesn’t seem impressed. I like the shimmering reflection.
Across the road in Kensington Gardens the Serpentine Gallery pavilion tells another story. It is constructed of what looks like curved concrete roof tiles. Collectively they look like an impenetrable barrier. It is a step beyond Brutalism; it is Concentration Camp.
Lovely stuff. By the way, I hope and at least half believe yr earlier prediction of Mrs M’s resignation inside July will prove to be wrong. I would not at all rule out or mind a radical re-working of the Tory party arising from some version of Peelite ructions. But I wd v much like Mrs May to come out of it all well after all.
As you know, I, too, was in the Mall to watch the flypast. And like you shed a tear ( as usual) when the Battle of Britain flight flew over, which I wiped away surreptitiously.
A trustee of the Benevolent Society of St Patrick was also present. He had never seen the Queen in the flesh and stood close to the Victoria Memorial with his binoculars. He saw something I missed – two royal children peeping out of an upstairs window with their mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, before their balcony appearance for the flypast.