The main news in this country yesterday was the death of Prince Philip, the Queen's husband. I am not really a Royalist but I always admire the Queen and Prince Philip for the way they get on and almost without exception, nothing phases them. Talking to my old school friends in our Whats App group last night we remembered a day we saw him around 1974. We were told in assembly that Prince Phillip would be driving along the by-pass near our school and if we wanted to, we could take flags the school had bought and we could line the road to see him and wave out flags. A typical bunch of surly teenagers we all said "We're not going!" Then we realised it coincided with a double maths lesson and we all suddenly became staunch royalists and off we all went flags in hand. We walked through the fields to the bypass, if we stood there today we would be bang in the middle of the M25, and waited. We all said it was so much more exciting than we expected and when his big black chauffeur driven car appeared with the royal standard on the front, it slowed right down and he wound down his window as it drove by. Of course no one took photos in those day we just waved our flags and cheered and he waved back. We all quite enjoyed the morning and I can remember us all walking back to school arguing about who he had been looking at as he waved. Much more fun than double maths!
One man in our group who used to own a pub in the 1980s told us a tale that happenend there, He had just openend at 11am and the pub was still empty. In walked Prince Philip on his own an ordered a pint! My friend said "Would you like it in a glass or a jug sir?" to which Prince Philip replied "You can put it in a bucket for all I care!" He drank his pint, looked all around the pub at the photos on the wall, and then said goodbye and left. He said it was the only time his wife had ever seen him speechless! As my friend so typically said at the end of the tale, and I could hear his cockney accent as I read it, "God Bless him, may he Rest in Peace".
I spent quite a bit of time out in the garden yesterday and when the sun came out it was quite warm, so much more is coming up, and I was delighted to see many of the acorns I planted last year from my Dad's oak tree have started to sprout and are just poking above the surface. It's as if they are all in communication with each other all appearing on the same day. The blossom on our cherry tree at the end of the garden is looking very pretty and each year I try and get a photo of it at it's very best, it's not quite there yet.
