This Paroligolophus agrestis – beaten from a viburnum during a late afternoon scuttle around the garden, holds today’s place in my journal for the simple reason that I don’t post pictures of pictures. Apart from this brief burst of activity, the most I did during the entire span of time between breakfast and dinner was to make cups of tea for R and myself, and carry them the ten steps from the kitchen to the sofa in the snug, where we spent the day watching the Queen’s funeral.
As Peter Caddick-Adams said, it was all strangely exhausting – and like him, every time I think of the long procession of the funeral cortège from Westminster Abbey to the Wellington Arch, I can immediately hear in my head the funeral march and the muffled drums. I can only imagine how tired the senior Royals must be this evening, though I dare say they’re buoyed up by how smoothly it all went, and how many people turned out to pay their respects to HMQ.
Beyond the processions, and the beautiful music in both services, there are two images that I can’t get out of my head: the first was the tension on the faces of the bearer party as they negotiated the lead-lined coffin up the steps of St George’s Chapel, and the second was the moment the Chapel Choir began to sing I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, and the King, waiting to enter the Chapel behind the coffin, brushed his gloved hand across his cheek.
R and I switched back and forth between BBC and ITV coverage over the course of the day, but I think ITV did it better – their studio talking heads were genuinely interesting and informative, and they didn’t feel the need to trot our any ‘celebrities’ to recount pointless anecdotes about their meetings with HMQ. That said, I’d have liked a little more irrelevant information at times, such as the identity of the hugely tall member of the Queen’s staff who walked in both the Windsor and London processions. Luckily I was able to turn to The Guardian for the answer to that question, and for some of the better irreverent takes on the day’s proceedings.