{"id":949,"date":"2013-06-26T16:02:10","date_gmt":"2013-06-26T23:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/?p=949"},"modified":"2013-06-26T15:08:51","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T22:08:51","slug":"but-it-is-impressive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/?p=949","title":{"rendered":"But it is impressive."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"noname-4\"Even arriving an hour early all the best spots are already taken. It may take place every day, (every other day August to April) but it’s on everyone’s list, so they flock there well in advance to get prime viewing spots. Maybe it\u2019s because it\u2019s free or maybe because it\u2019s one of those things to do when in London.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a pretty spiffy show, lot\u2019s of shouting, stamping, striding and more stamping.\u00a0 All the while a shiny military brass band keeps everyone humming along. Then the horses arrive just to add a little more splendour and make sure anyone who wasn\u2019t impressed before gets a wee shiver.\u00a0\"Queen's<\/span><\/p>\n

The Life Guard<\/span><\/a> are the rock stars of the show. Really. First of all, they\u2019re the ones on horses. The guys in the big bearskin hats are impressive but a man in tight fitting pants, thigh high leather boots, holding a sword and astride a horse\u2026Yes, it isn\u2019t difficult to imagine any one of these lads causing a mighty swooning amongst the maidens just by riding over to say hello.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t much to do before the fuss and bother begins other than \"crowdcounting windows on the Mountbatten-Windsor<\/span><\/a> family home. There\u2019s a lot. They look fairly unremarkable, as far as windows go, until I see how small the guards on duty look as they stride across the front of the building. That\u2019s when I realize the front door is a 7 iron shot from my side of the fence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Behind me a group of Australians chat about a play they went to the night before. I join in, we\u2019re all part of the same rabble, after all. I ask where in Oz they\u2019re from and then they ask me where in Canada I\u2019m from.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"theWe chat about our travels and our lives out in the colonies. I look at the palace. And the enormous fence between the rabble and the royals. And all the gold that has been applied to parts of the fence to make the decorative bits really pop.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She follows my glance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe paid for this, you know.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAh, so did we.\u201d Perhaps I\u2019d said something that implied we were here because of a lottery or game show?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I mean all this\u201d, her hands wave at the fence, the palace and the grounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"2I think about the bearskin hats and the World-Famous-in-Canada Queen\u2019s favourite horse, Burmese<\/span><\/a>: bits of Canada\u2019s ongoing tribute payments to the great white mother.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We sent them gold, they sent us convicts. Canada got them too in the early years: Australia wasn\u2019t the only off-site storage for the starving rural folk (aka \u2018rabble\u2019) displaced by the industrial revolution.\u00a0 We sent gold, wood, beef, beaver pelts, bear skins and more gold. Australia sent wool, mutton,\u00a0 yet more gold and a convenient place for the sun to rest but not set as it traversed the empire on the way to the biggest jewel in the crown, India.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We got a highly developed sense of responsibility, unrelenting politeness and just a touch of swagger. \"mindAussies got drive, ambition and the charming ability to call a spade an expletive expletive anatomically impossible expletive shovel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, there we stood, birds home to roost but the gate\u2019s closed and it’s only the hired help out in the yard. Not even a\u00a0<\/span>half hearted wave from the balcony by a semi-royal. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I guess we\u2019re here, sweating in the sun, squished against the bars by the crowds because it\u2019s one of the things to do when in London.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It isn’t really free, not in any sense of the word.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"This
This is how the 1% get their fresh air in the middle of London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"I
I keep my rings in a chocolate box on the dresser.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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\"meanwhile,
meanwhile, on the way to the tube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Even arriving an hour early all the best spots are already taken. It may take place every day, (every other day August to April) but it’s on everyone’s list, so they flock there well in advance to get prime viewing spots. Maybe it\u2019s because it\u2019s free or maybe because it\u2019s one of those things to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40,11],"tags":[156,150,152,154,153,155,69,151,118],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=949"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":973,"href":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions\/973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sermonsinstones.blaseckie.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}