YellyElly

The Queen came to Melbourne today, and seeing as I had some time on my hands, I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet her and charm her into letting me into her country. She did wave at me, so that’s progress, right?

Conveniently, she was headed for Government House, which is in our classy neighborhood and has been inspected carefully by our very own conservation star (bet you didn’t know you were participating in important preparations for The Queen, Steve!), so I took a little walk over to join the crowds in the sunshine. The following is a selection of terrible phone pictures to illustrate my experience.

One of the first things I noticed as we all waited patiently was this guy:

Now, if he hadn’t turned away as I discreetly took his picture, you would see that he was carrying a large camera and had a clear wire earpiece. He was mostly scanning the crowd and occasionally using his zoom lens to “take a picture” of Queen fanatics.

When she finally did arrive by royal tram, it was in fact behind schedule. We all know that The Queen is never late, but it seems that not even Her Royal Highness can make the trams run on time.

After a dignified dismount came the moment we were all waiting for: The Queen’s quick trip up to Government House in a royal SUV past her admiring public.

She was only meters away and waved her little gloved hand kindly at me. If you look closely, you can just make out her “shocking pink” (that’s the official description) hat in the back of the car.

Of course, she was followed by about twenty cars full of flowers, attendants, police, secret security muscle men, etc. and then twenty motorcycle police.

Then, after about thirty seconds of excitement following the hours of anticipation, The Queen was gone and the crowd dispersed.

On my way home, I noticed that the flag at Government House had been changed from the usual yellow to a blue flag, thus answering a question that has plagued me for some time now.

That’s a tiny blue flag up there in the distance, in case  you are having trouble making it out.

And thus concludes my afternoon with The Queen. I hope she’s enjoying a nice cup of tea before she has to head to Perth.