brush with royalty

i've seen The Queen!

a few months ago, it was advertised in the local paper that the HM The Queen would be visiting BSE for Maundy Thursday, some random royal tradition where at a mid-morning cathedral church service she gives money to old people who do volunteer work. she gives little coin purses full of cash to as many men and women as years old she is (83 men, 83 women this year) on the Thursday before Easter.

i marked it in my diary, expecting my embossed invitation to arrive by royal courier. it never did. so i decided that i would try to go out and see her drive by, at the very least.

then the newspaper reported that there would be "very little" opportunity to see her, as she was popping in the church, crossing the street for lunch, and then back on the road for some other royal engagement. so i lost hope.

as i was cooking lunch this Maundy Thursday, i saw little girls and boys walking by my window with their teeny Union Jacks, headed home after having been flag-waving, loyal subjects when Q arrived. i put my dreams of seeing The Queen to bed.

an hour later I headed downtown to pick up my bike from the shop. and who should be rounding the corner in her black limo with the full Hot Fuzz escort? HM The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh themselves! i stopped by the barricade and gave a wave, and she waved back! no shit, there were only me and a man and his son on our part of the street, and she waved at US!

of course i didn't have my camera. why would i have taken my camera to pick up my bike? doh!