what we did today

Today Travis is gone all day playing paintball, so it has just been me and Em (he is napping right now so I am going to try to get this posted before he wakes up!).

Me when I woke up this morning - Travis had to leave the house by about 6.15 so it was a bit of an early start for a weekend!

When Em woke up we just hung around the house for awhile. ...
...watched some Diego...
...had a bottle...
He is getting pretty good at holding his own bottle, FINALLY. I suspect he has partly avoided it till now out of pure laziness.

In the late morning we walked down to Berkeley Square, of the famous Vera Lynn song.!! I'd walked by it last week on the way home from the wedding and wanted to go back and see it properly. This picture does not do it justice at all, it's a really beautiful little park. It was 3.7 miles there and back so we got our exercise for the day (well, I did. Emrys rode in his backpack like a little princeling...).

I look very evil in this picture. Oh well...
Em chilling on the grass, chewing on a piece of bread from my sandwich.
Why, hello there!
One thing I really have to give to London parks is the number of benches they have. Look at this! As opposed to SK where we get, like, two benches per park, max, and then jealously eye whoever gets to them first while woefully eating our lunches standing up...

I have no idea what he's doing with his tongue here, but it's hilarious.
Standing by his backpack, clearly giving me the hint-hint that he is ready to leave now...

View from the north entrance of the park. Isn't it pretty?

Interesting Historical Fact # 1: the trees here are more than two hundred years old

Interesting Historical Fact # 2: during the War, a unit of the United States Army was stationed here and there were also air raid shelters on the grounds.

OK, I am now going to run and try to do the dishes before Emrys wakes up! xo Becky

royal wedding!

As most of you probably know, I went down to Hyde Park to watch the Royal Wedding on the big screens there. Obviously I was not going to just sit at home while something like this was going on. I have basically loved the royals madly since I was a pre-teen and I have the hand-sewed Union Jack to prove it (not joking, though I'm actually not sure where it is at the moment ["and never shall ye see it again" says Uncle Johnny, cackling madly to himself...ANYWAY]). When other 12-year-olds were swooning over, I don't know, the Justin Biebers of the day (it is a mark of my intense ignorance of pop culture growing up that I don't even know who these boys would have been), I was writing fan mail to the Queen Mum. So, yes: basically my entire life has been building to this point.

I thought about going down to The Mall and camping out to get a spot along the procession route, but decided against it for several reasons:

a) people started camping out there on the MONDAY before the wedding (four nights beforehand, just so we're all clear) and, let's face it, I love the royals but I do not love them QUITE THAT MUCH (and besides, I had a ton of work to get done for school that week, and much as it pains me to admit that I am the sort of person who stays at home to get work done rather than take part in Grand Adventures of Once-In-A-Lifetime-Quality...I am)

b) even if I had staked out a place early on, chances are someone tall would have stood in front of me. This becomes increasingly probable when you realize that, to me, "someone tall" means "anyone over 5 foot three inches". And then I wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway

c) I am not the biggest fan of large crowds, or at least of being stuck in the middle of them, unable to see anything and stuck at the level of people's armpits.

SO. All in all I thought Hyde Park was a good compromise. Plus, it meant I would actually get to see the wedding ceremony itself. So - since the park opened at 7 am - I set off from home at 6:30. It's about a 45 minute walk from where we live so I thought that would get me there in good time.

A sign I saw on the way there, in the window of Selfridges on Oxford Street. Have I written about Selfridges before? It's a huge department store - there are something like 6 floors and its all ludicrously expensive brand names (i.e. I do not shop there) although we did once go in just to wander around and gawk at the prices on the baby clothes.

Oxford Street, all decked out with flags! And super empty, what with it being 6:45 am and all.

Flags, across the street from the British Museum.

Hyde Park when I arrived. There were a few people already there (apparently even keener than me) but it was pretty empty. These are two of the three big screens they had set up (you can just barely see the edge of the third one, on the left).

Almost-empty Hyde Park, circa 7:30 am.

After awhile it started to fill up (circa 8:30)...

It was a very festive atmosphere. People brought blankets, lots of people brought drinks and food, a few people had even brought tables or beach chairs.

There were a surprising number of people wearing flags as capes, haha.

Me posing with one of the flags that came with the edition of The Sun (as you can see from the oh-so-tasteful advertising, ha!). Hooray Wills and Kate!
I was Very Excited.
More crowd!!

The crowd, waiting for the ceremony to begin.

The moment when Kate first stepped out of the car at the Abbey! The crowd went nuts.

My view! Pretty darn good.

Best moment of the ceremony! Cute Mr. Middleton, Wills and Kate and HARRY!! Yes I was quite beside myself.

As they were exiting the church (for those of you who watched it - the moment when they kind of paused in the doorway, on the way out), all the speakers in the crowd exploded with confetti! (I mean, I am assuming it didn't actually come out the speakers. But, you know.) It was all very festive. There was much flag-waving and hooting.

Walking home - you cannot see too well here but there are basically solid people as far as the eye can see.
So, that was that! I had to watch the balcony and the kiss on Youtube later, but I had a great, great day and will remember it pretty much forever.