My day was totally dominated by the wedding yesterday. I woke up at 5am and counted the hours until it was due to begin. Then I started getting ready for the party, inbetween trips upstairs to watch every detail and every person arrive at the abbey. At around midday, we headed off to a garden party hosted by BP at the Hilton Hotel here. Of course it is already too hot to be in a garden here, so we were in an air-conditioned marquee, with a HUGE screen and lots of English food such as toad-in-the-hole and Pim’s to drink.
It was just heavenly. I don’t know why, but this sort of English feast makes me so very happy. I sat there, gazing at the screen, praying the rain would hold off in London and feeling thoroughly proud to be British – even though I’m not.
When they sang God Save the Queen we all stood up and I noticed many shed a tear. I wondered how many would rather have been back in Blightly for the big day than in the Middle East, pretending to be in Blighty. I guess that is the fate of the expat, always to be trying to recreate home, which I do endlessly by shopping at M & S, for example, and educating the children in the British system and reading the Daily Mail online several times a day.
“I want to live in England,” I wailed to Rupert when I got home after the balcony kiss. He had gone back for a kip some three hours earlier.
“No you don’t,” he said. “It’s a ghastly place. Have a cup of tea.”
I suppose the reality is that the England I am so in love with doesn’t exist any more, except for maybe in some parts of Chelsea or pockets of the countryside, all places I can’t afford to live in. So perhaps the best thing is to live here, and visit those places as often as possible.
But I would like to be there for the next royal wedding, however lovely the marquee on the lawn in Abu Dhabi was.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2011
Oh gawd, does anyone actually read Daily Mail these days? I thought it’s a paper for builders and their grandmas. And members of EDL. Rather surprised that someone as intelligent as you reads it daily…:(
How funny, we were in Singapore, and watched her walk up the aisle, but I was so pleased to miss the over the topness of it all! Mind you, have to confess to reading the DM whilst out there, which means much more enjoyable when you are not actually in the UK! Xx