Life in London - Trooping the Colour

After the heady excitement of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the annual Trooping of the Colour ceremony that followed a couple of weeks later was a bit like a random cousin that didn’t get much attention.

We woke up on the morning of the parade and thought that since we had missed the vast majority of the Diamond Jubilee festivities through being in Holland over the long weekend, we had best make the effort to get out there and see what it was all about.

It was a nice sentiment, but if we’re honest, we just really weren’t that enthused.

We felt tired and sluggish after a long week at work, and the weather was looking typically ordinary so we rolled over and went back to sleep.

We woke up again at 10:30 and realized that a fork in the road was fast approaching…if we wanted to go, then we needed to get cracking. Somewhat begrudgingly,
we rolled out of bed, slowly got ready, donned our heavy winter jackets, and made our way to The Mall.

We arrived at about 11:30 and for all intents and purposes it looked at though we’d missed all the action. The crowd seemed to be thinning out and there really wasn’t much happening. Needless to say, this hadn’t done a huge amount to heighten our enthusiasm.  

We wandered around and asked a Bobby what was happening. His reply was something along the lines of ‘you’ve got a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing the royal family today. You might see a few horses go past if you’re lucky, but that will be it’.

At this point, we were beginning to think that we might have been better off staying in bed.

We decided that since we had gone to the effort of making the journey into town, we had best stick around…if a few horses were all we were going to see, then we had best make the most of it. 

We continued strolling up The Mall through the thinning crowd and reached a dead end where we couldn’t walk any further, but they were letting people cross over to the other side of The Mall. We were particularly keen to make the crossing as this would have allowed us to continue walking up towards Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, we were about two seconds late. They closed the gate and we were left stranded at some random point halfway up The Mall.

Again, this didn’t do a huge amount to heighten our mood. To make matters worse, it started drizzling.

More or less stuck where we were, we found a vantage point and readied ourselves to see whatever was left of the parade.

After 15 minutes or so, we heard the distant sounds of a marching band. Ever so slightly, our spirits lifted. At least we were going to see something. We waited a bit longer, and sure enough, we gradually started to see some action. A variety of different soldiers and guards in every conceivable uniform, a host of different bands – some marching and some on horseback, and a whole range of vintage horse drawn carriages.

As the procession gradually trundled past, we heard the crowd start to get increasingly vocal. We were intrigued. We cast our mind back to the Bobby who suggested that we would be a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing the royal family….surely it couldn’t be!?!

Before we knew it, they were rolling past us. The Queen, Prince Phillip, William, Kate, Harry, Charles, Camilla, Fergie’s kids…the whole lot of them. It was quite surreal so see some of the most iconic faces on the planet wave past about 20 meters away from where we were standing.

Before we knew it, they were gone. (As an aside…at this point we couldn’t help but feel sorry for the people who camped out for 3 days for the Diamond Jubilee parade!)

The parade continued to roll past for another 10 minutes or so, but before long the police were starting to clean up.

From this point onwards, things started to move quickly.

We looked back down The Mall and saw a huge line of Bobbies leading the crowd up towards Buckingham Palace. The line made it’s way past us and all of a sudden the gate that we had been stranded behind was opened. We made a quick dash out onto the street and all of a sudden we were walking down The Mall, right behind the row of Bobbies.

Again, things happened quickly. Before we knew it we were at the monument in front of the palace and leading a race towards the gates. We went left around the monument and pushed right up behind the row of Bobbies. The Bobbies held the line for as long as they could, but we were in prime position when they broke. We ran the last 20 meters and found ourselves pinned up against the gates of Buckingham palace with thousands of other royal watchers piling in behind us.

It was incredible. As ridiculous as it sounds, our adrenaline was pumping.

From what was a slow start to the day where staying in bed had seemed to be the most appealing option, we now found ourselves right in front of the palace balcony waving at the royal family, enjoying more marching bands and watching the vintage planes do their fly over. 

While we wouldn’t normally see ourselves getting star struck by celebrities, there was something quite thrilling about seeing the Royal family up close.

We felt like we had indeed ended up winning the lottery.