Saturday, September 10, 2011
London, England
Jonathan was off to a polo match this morning, and then to the airport for a meeting. Jan and I had a lazy morning and early afternoon with Tara, then she was off in a taxi to meet Jonathan for a jouney to Swindon for the evening and tomorrow.
Jan and I were given tickets to 'The Proms', a BBC-sponsored concert in Hyde Park, by David and Leanne, for this evening. David had bought the tickets months ago as a birthday present for Leanne, but a conflicting event occurred which they elected to attend, so the tickets would have gone unused unless we were available. And, happily, we were. It is the only event on our calendar today and a good thing too as we are not sleeping well at all. We are happy, healthy, and in excellent sprits but we wake up too early in the morning (actually, the middle of the night) and then can't get back to sleep. But, we know the drill and we will just wait till our natural rhythm catches up with the time change. But, we forgot our melatonin and that was a mistake.
Jan and I headed off in the early evening to Hyde Park via the #22 bus along Kings Road at the stop across from the "World's End Health Center". No I'm not kidding, actually the whole area of town, a part of Chelsea I think, is called 'Worlds End'. After a long walk through Hyde Park we came upon the site of 'The Proms' concert, and entered. The place was swamped, packed, there were 50,000 people announced to be there and many more outside the barriers and walls just listening to the music. As well as the outdoor concert, there was a performance at the Royal Albert Hall for those dressed to the nines, and when the outdoor concert ended the Royal Albert was linked up to the huge screens at the outdoor performance so that the finale at the Royal Albert could be viewed by all. The only word was 'spectacular', and Jan and I just weren't prepared for what we saw.
Here is a link to the details of the concerts, this year was the 117th edition (England is all about traditions), and this site and others explain the story so much better than I .... But I must say that this was an extremely exciting evening for us, and one we will never, never forget. It totally embodies and represents the spirit of England in its traditions, patriotism, and the boundless 'there will always be an England' emotion that is easy to sense among the English people whose roots go back for some generations here.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Proms
About half way down that web page is the story of the last night of the proms, which has its own traditions. What the web page said is exactly what we saw, the traditions held for another year.
So Jan and I were 'Prommers', and enjoyed it immensely. The outdoor event we attended was the last of the 2011 season, and included a fireworks show as well. The performers were an eclectic mix, from Rolf Harris through to Catherine Jenkins, Westview, and other opera and symphony pieces. It was wonderful. It turned out, unexpectedly for us, to be a very patriotic event as well with huge numbers of British flags in evidence. The finale from the Albert Hall included 'Rule Britannia', 'Land of Hope and Glory', other patriotic songs, and concluded of course with 'God Save the Queen'. Quite appropriate, and all that. We have many night shots which are clear to us as we were there and remember, but might not mean much to others. And I took masses of movies, masses, and they are spectacular in both sight and sound, but we cant put them on the website.
Home and in bed by about one in the morning, a great evening.
