I've seen the Queen!

Patriotic Tom 

Today The Queen visited Shropshire, for a special Jubilee pageant at RAF Cosford.  As we were in Japan for the Jubilee I thought we had better go to give Tom a chance to say he did something special for it.  Tickets were through a lottery and free of charge, we applied and won (I think everyone won though, didn't hear of anyone who didn't get any)

We waited until the morning to decide whether to go or not as the weather has been so so bad in recent days.  It dawned with blue sky and the forecast was favourable, so I made up a picnic and packed a bag full of wet weather clothes and sun hats etc - it was bursting at the seams.  Matt was going to come as well but he is full of cold so thought better of it.

Now I had looked on the website for the event - it was very very vague, said the pageant was at 1.40, doors opened at 8.00 and activities started at 9.00, but no mention of what the activities were.  I'm one of those people who hates going somewhere and not knowing what is going to happen.  It didn't get any better - we couldn't find anyone selling programmes when we got there and when we saw someone  with one, we asked to look in it to get an idea of what was happening.  Even in the programme there was no information - argghhhhh.  I ended up cornering some military personnel and asking them what was happening - they were as much in the dark as everyone else, but at least knew where the procession was going to take place - you would think that a basic need of people visiting would be to be able to tell them what was happening and where!  Oh hum rant over!

Bouncing down the bouncy slide

Waiting for The Queen

I guessed to leave home around 10.30 to give us time to get there (delays were expected) and have a picnic before the procession.  I was parked up by 10.50 - no traffic anywhere, I just sailed right on it, and no-one asked for a ticket at any point!  We walked down by some stalls and immediately bumped into someone I know from baby groups.  Carried on and found a bouncy castle area - £2.50 for unlimited play all day - bargain.  I was just sorting Tom out when I saw Rachel Z and Olly already in the bouncy castle area.  Olly and Tom were happy and went off playing immediately.  Great.  There were two bouncy castles - one a regular castle and the other a bouncy slide - Tom loved both even though both were busy and didn't get upset when bumped into or crowded - he really has grown up recently, that would have been his idea of hell 6 months ago and he would have been crying in my arms within minutes.

The Queen on a screen (the nearest we got)

The 'famous' Shropshire Mammoth

Rachel was meeting up with some of her friends, who generously allowed us to tag along.  We had a picnic and then wondered what on earth to do regarding seeing the procession.  In the end we decided it was better to make a base in front of the big screens rather than try to find a space by the fence - the bit by us was very crowded and we didn't know how long the route was or where would be good to see everything.  This also meant that the children would still be able to run around.  This worked but it did mean that we didn't see The Queen or the parade with our own eyes - just through the screens (we did manage to see her hat as she travelled in the car to the marquee though).  The parade was good, although I had no idea what some of the floats / costumes were of.  For example I found out that the first one was of Mt Everest (by watching the news when I got back) I thought it was of an iceberg on a bridge with pirates on it (as you can tell I really had no idea)  Anyway it was a good atmosphere, Tom had a great time and he can say he has seen The Queen - he saw her hat, "orange hat" and that's enough for me and him.

John Deere

Digger

Tom and Olly continued playing for the whole afternoon, they ran and ran and ran - it was after 4pm before we left.  He was asleep in seconds.  I woke him up for dinner, which he ate, then straight to bed - his eyes were horribly red (a mixture of tiredness and sun)  A good day.