We missed the last race of the day when we went to Ascot, in the hope of beating at least some of the traffic heading from the racecourse into central London.
It was worth the sacrifice and we made good headway until the fast lane of the motorway was closed to make way for the car bearing none other than Her Majesty (who’d ditched the horse-drawn carriage she arrived in) back to Windsor castle. Here’s a glimpse of it as it whooshed past us:
I know I have wittered on before about how much I love a hat, but it just so happened that this year Royal Ascot was on at the same time that I was back in England. If there was ever an excuse to travel with an oversized hat box and two screaming children, this was it.
The main topic of conversation when you mentioned Ascot to anyone this year was the dress code which, for the Royal Enclosure, has been drastically – and rightly – tightened up. A result of too many people for too many years, rocking up with very little on.
I am pale. I am so pale that people always used to want to stand next to me in school photographs (being pale in England is the opposite of being pale here, it’s considered to be just about the worst thing in the world) as I would accentuate even the most non-existant of tans.
Sadly though, I manage to lose any pale-points I could score by living over here because my paleness is overlayed with – yup, take a deep breath – freckles. Read More
I am vaguely aware that there are some people in this world who go on these wonderful sounding things called detox holidays. Whilst I don’t doubt that they must be pretty awful when you’re actually there, you do get to return home wearing clothes that are a size too large and a rather smug healthy glow. In short, the polar opposite to the sort of holiday I have just come back from.
While I am over here in England, I’m using my trip as a great excuse to say yes to everything I get asked to do. The more english it happens to be, the better.
One of the things I always used to go and see when I lived in Gloucestershire was Giffords Circus, the really rather fabulous 1930s-style circus that tours south west England. Read More
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