The Queen and I

Yesterday the Province of BC had a Bank Holiday for Remembrance Day and so all of the elderly ladies in our area, plus Kevin and myself, went to Silver City mid-afternoon to see the film 'The Queen'. Wow. What an amazing film. Not only did it achieve what Hollywood rarely does, in that both the Queen and Tony Blair were presented in a sympathetic light in spite of it being about a tension between them, but it captured so much of the Zeitgeist of that time that it had me crying for most of the way through. I could happily sit through it all over again and I'm heartily glad that we went to see it on the big screen.

So today, Kevin has the day off and I am not going into the Nature Park. One year ago today, friends and family around the world, well, OK, UK and the States, watched us being married by a lovely Jewish lady in our dining room. How's that for Zeitgeist?
By the end of that day, Sleepy had sent me pictures of her, Crisp-e, Eilie and Barbara all sitting on the sofa watching us on their TV. Brilliant. Barbara had brought flowers for the occasion. I think they had all been toasting us long before we were actually married.
We included those pictures in our immigration application.

My son Austen had written a speech which was to be read out in an English accent and no, he didn't expect me to read it out myself, he knew our friend Steve, who is an actor, would be there. It was also wonderful that he was able to read out e-mails from my friends Dawn and Ree in the States. It's amazing what you can put together in a few days.

Our friend Shaniah, the very same Shaniah from whom Ms. Twain stole her name - a fact acknowledged on her biopic - scheduled her meetings so that she was able to stop in Vancouver long enough to be with us for the afternoon and evening.

I like the system here of having a marriage commissioner whom you can select and get in touch with and will come to your house. She was brilliant, held our hands so to speak, made suggestions and was positive about everything.
We were able to choose the timing so that family and friends in the UK would still be awake, but in the States they'd be home from work, also to tie in with Steve's committments and Shaniah's.

So, here we are, a year on and going strong.
More glasses to raise, bottoms up.