We have been much more active sight see-ers this vacation than we usually are; I think it’s because we knew we have all those days at sea coming up in which to recover. By the end of yesterday, though, I was feeling pretty worn out. Plus, we’ve got all our Cunard 175th Anniversary revelry on Sunday – I was thinking maybe I’d just lie low today. Then we turned on the news and saw that Kate Middleton had just had her baby. Well, we thought, we can’t be in London at the time of a Royal birth and just hang out in the hotel. We’re only three tube stops from Buckingham Palace, so off we went.
First, though, we made a little stop at the Vauxhall City Farm, which Lis had been wanting to see. Unfortunately for her, those kind of places can depress me if the animals seem cramped, as these did, so I didn’t want to stay very long. I told her to take as long as she wanted, and I’d wait outside. But, it’s not as much fun for her, knowing I’m hanging around waiting – poor sweetie.
Then, off to the tube – we are becoming practiced subway riders now. We got off at the Buckingham Palace stop (Green Park), and stopped to get some lunch before joining the hordes. It took us some time to find a place we both liked, and Lis was getting a bit grumpy. We finally settled on Caffe Concerto, which seems to be a chain here, as there were several of them. The food was good, but the service was pretty horrible. We seemed to have deeply offended the girl waiting on us (probably by being cheapo cheapskates, sharing a sandwich and ordering no drinks or appetizers), and at a certain point in the meal she simply washed her hands of us – she kept walking past our table, but never spoke to us again, and we had to flag down the manager to get and pay our check.
After lunch we joined the throngs headed to Buckingham Palace. It looked kind of daunting, but it really wasn’t – there were lots of people, but it wasn’t ever completely jam packed. Just enough to be fun. Once we got to the palace gates, we saw a long queue, and wondered what it was for. We followed it to its source, and found that it was people lining up to take pictures of the Royal Proclamation of the birth – which was a framed piece of letterhead stationery with a couple typewritten lines and some signatures (of whom, I know not).
What was funny is that there were a bunch of security people there keeping the rest of us separate from the queue and the proclamation – protecting the sacrifice of the queuers, I guess. I took a little movie of the whole thing, figuring a picture of people taking pictures of the Royal Proclamation was good enough. But Lis said “Let’s get in line.” Normally I go to great lengths to avoid lines, but, what the heck – we didn’t have anywhere to be, and how likely am I ever to be in London for a royal birth again – we queued up. Actually, it was kind of great to be in line, because we got to stand right up against the fence with unobstructed views of the palace, which was kind of cool.
When we got to the front of the line, the guy there was hurrying us along like crazy – “Hurry up, hurry up, take your photos, move it along, get the next five up here, make room, snap your photo and move along, let’s go…” – and the easel holding the proclamation was too far away for my (relatively crappy) phone camera, so mostly what I ended up with is a picture of an easel. But, whatever – here it is…
After our photo op, we wandered around for a while, but it got suddenly quite chilly, and we were still pretty tired, so we decided to head off in search of Cream Tea (tea, scones, clotted cream, and jam). What could be easier than finding tea in the environs of Buckingham Palace, right? Wrong. The Grosvenor Hotel was nearby (lovely hotel, by the way – very grand lobby) and they had High Tea (all of the above, plus sandwiches and cakes and assorted other goodies), but we didn’t want that much (or to pay that much – yikes!). We could go to the tea room near our hotel, but, as we learned yesterday, that would take a year. So we searched and searched. Eventually, I was over it and wanted to give up and go either to our tea room or just back to the hotel, but my girl is persistent. She had a bead on a place, and dragged me grousing and whining through the streets of London to Baker & Spice, on Elizabeth Street near Victoria Station.
Sadly, they didn’t have a proper cream tea (no clotted cream! The very idea <harrumph>!!), but their scones were good and their jam homemade, and the sit down was desperately needed by yours truly. Tea revived me enough for the walk back to Victoria Station and the tube ride home, but in the station Lis, who’d been wanting to pick up a couple things for tomorrow’s trip, wanted to stop at a Marks & Spencer’s. I completely balked at this – I had just exactly enough energy to get back to the hotel and not one drop more. I said I’d just head back on my own, but Lis balked at that – she didn’t want us to be separated (even though, as I’ve mentioned, we are total tube pros now). Luckily, she spied an empty seat on a bench, and we parked me on it so she could do her shopping.
We got back to our room just in time to watch the BBC coverage of Kate, William, and the new princess going home, which we watched while we ate the food we’d brought back from Baker & Spice for dinner. It was so hilarious to me – all the speculation of when they’d appear, and would they talk to the press, and would they be driven or would William drive, like he did last time, etc, etc, etc. And all the while, the crawl said things like “Breaking News: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to appear shortly” and “Breaking News: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have appeared” and “Breaking News: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their way to Kensington Palace” – this last accompanied by an aerial shot of their car (driven by William, as it turned out) driving to the palace, with occasional cut aways to instant replays of when they came out and got in said car. So adorable.
And then tomorrow our Cunard gala festivities – who knew things would get so exciting! 🙂
