Royal Watch

Another glorious day today, 28,and not as hot as yesterday thank goodness! Mum is in good shape and keeping up with all our walking!

We decided to take a walk around the area of the Great Park that Martin and James explored last weekend. It has a different approach to the Copper Horse from the Old Windsor side and adjacent to the Royal Lodge. The Queen Mother spent time here and we can see why! It's a beautiful part of Berkshire - our own backyard!

James was fascinated, as usual, with the automatic gates and buttons on tall poles to allow horses through. We walked up the road to the Horse and were nearly there when a Jaguar came driving along and we were very quick to get off the road.

We were stunned to realise it was the Queen and Prince Phillip driving themselves to church! Well, that's what one does at 11am on a Sunday morning, doesn't one? She looked lovely in a red/pink outfit including hat and was smiling. Probably amused by the looks on our faces! We had suspected something was up as we passed a number of Land Rovers on roads usually devoid of traffic. In hindsight these we certainly security.

We spent some time at the Horse and admiring the view and showing Mum again exactly where our new gate is! Time to head back so we did so via a mowed path around the back of the Royal Lodge.

Once back at our starting point we were at the entrance to the Lodge and as it was 12 o'clock decided to sit down and wait to see if the Royals made an exit. Upon some consultation with the Warden, Mum confirmed that they had indeed left. Oh well, there's always next week!

Home for lunch then off to Fleet to visit Peter, Diana, Richard and James Bennett. We arrived at 3 and spent a lovely couple of hours in the back yard, blessed with cool drinks, sunshine and yummy cake made by Diana! James thought it was great and of course, asked for more!

We checked out the 2 chooks, but there were no frogs in the pond due to an earlier snake giving them a bit of a fright! SNAAAKKKEEE??!! I wasn't keen but Peter had caught it and saved to show James. Ick. More like a big worm, really! I thought there were no snakes in England.....

James managed to stay awake for 5 minutes once in the car and we came home for dinner, bath and now bed. Marty surprised us with a dash down the street and delicious chocolate fudge brownie and Chunky Monkey banana ice cream for guess who? What a terrific way to end a most eventful day!