Normal service will be resumed?

I guess funerals / someone’s death - whether within one’s family, or in the public domain - automatically encourage reflection on the past. In this instance, we now have a new King, and, coincidentally, a new PM, so quite a bit to experience and discuss in the now. Fingers crossed we have a happy and positive future!

MawtheMerrier

Strictly, jumpers, soups and stews - hurray!

Rah! Rah! Rah!
We’re off on a break to a country lodge retreat tomorrow.
I’m just admiring my cardigan and scarf collection as I pack.
I’m sooo excited about the Autumn! ?

How can we possibly all agree! We are all in different places. Future and past muddle up for me. Anniversary of my mother’s death today, also little granddaughter’s birthday. My long standing friend is probably dying but the grandchildren have a kitten. I finally got my eye operation but the vision will never be good. I can’t tidy all this into “let’s look forward” or to “let’s be gloomy”. It is just life for an elderly very fortunate woman.

Well said Marjgran One size never fits all.

I, too, feel as though it's the end of an era.
The Queen upheld standards completely and that has all disappeared. So many of us have become Republicans now.

I don't think the events of the last fortnight with the UK will ever really happen again x I made sure I watched it to be part of history and I considered my actions to be respectful and warranted.
Yes we can look forward to change now.
It's a scarey time in the world but I'm going to try and be optimistic.
Try, try, try
I feel a bit like Dory in finding Nemo
"Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming......."

Fleurpepper

Last night, we watched Paddington 2- the perfect anti-dote!

We watched Paddington 2 as well! What a fabulous cast, including the CGI Paddington - how on earth did they get so much expression into his face? I laughed my head off when I heard people were leaving marmalade sandwiches in tribute - what a compliment to the Queen’s acting!

Found my escape and uplift in the cinema yesterday. Absolutely ridiculous romcom called ticket to paradise with Julia Roberts and George Clooney but it hit a spot for me.

I am proud the UK did the right thing. At times it was tedious and some people went over the top in their grief and adoration - had she said 'I just want a family do, no fuss' - it was never going to happen! The coverage of our history and the accession system will have shown our constitutional system does not give the monarch power - only power with consent. A fact lost to many here and abroad.

Well I was glued to the whole funeral and found it mesmerising. Especially the slow March down the two miles of the Long Walk. The ratings pulling the gun carriage, the pipes and drums, the bearers, everything. For a Queen of seventy years it was very fitting I felt.
I even enjoyed the daily look at The Queue!
However, all the other news is desperately depressing, especially the coverage of the war in Ukraine. Just wish Putin would expire!

I too will miss 'the queue HannahLoisLuke!!! Wondering if the 'maturing cheese' is still on webcam . . . .

Apparently the Queen herself left instructions about what she wanted at her funeral. But I wonder if she ever envisioned so much pageantry and excess? She always seemed modest and not at all vain. Personally, I preferred Prince Philip’s funeral, being short, simple and dignified and you felt it suited his no-nonsense attitude to life. In the same way, I thought there was a lot to be said for Princess Beatrice’s quiet wedding compared to the lavishness of Prince Harry’s. Maybe we can be thankful to lockdown for some things!

maddyone

I didn’t think it went on too long, nor do I think that things shouldn’t have been closed down yesterday. Yes, life goes on, but it is a different life. As I’ve said before on other threads, my own mother died four days before the Queen, and her funeral was the week before the Queen’s. Maybe the way I feel is bound up with that, but I feel that life is totally changed now. I’m crying now just writing this, and my mother wasn’t even the best mother in the world, but we, I , need time to grieve and to adapt to the new normal. That is the same for us all, the Queen is the only monarch we have ever known and things are now different. I’m not even a monarchist but somehow I just feel everything is different and we will never go back to how it was before. When all the problems of the world are sorted or moved on or changed into new problems, yesterday will remain as one of the most magnificent and historical days in the country, and even the world.

Hope you okay Maddyone

I watched the swearing in of the new King, and watched the morning part of the funeral, as I am interested in history, and this was history in the making. However, it's getting pretty tedious now with all post mortem discussions (no pun intended) about whether William and Harry are on better terms, whether the presenters who jumped the queue did so or not, what the mark on the bottom of Megan's shoes signified, etc etc ad nauseum. Time to move on I think.
However the bigger picture is not optimistic, given the scare stories coming out of Russia, so to quote Ian Drury "reasons to be cheerful" are for me small stuff, such as feeling pleased with my recent replanting of part of the garden and looking forward to that developing, looking forward to planting up my pots with bulbs (though not for some weeks hopefully as the present occupants are in full flower), had a lovely meet up with one of my sisters yesterday for coffee and the unavoidable purchase of more plants...
I think I am just going to try and live for each day, enjoy whatever positives each day brings, and hope that we are all in a position to look forward to the spring.

I think and hope that a scaled down monarchy, that King Charles has long said he wants, means that royal funerals and weddings will be more like Philip’s funeral and Beatrice’s wedding in the future. Never mind all the fuss, pomp, and ceremony that Harry’s wedding entailed, and we had the same for Eugenie’s wedding, and she was ninth in line to the throne at that point. I’m not sure that the Queen actually knew the meaning of frugal, judging by the extravagant jewellery gifts she gave to members of her family, or judging by the elaborate and expensive royal weddings for herself, and all her children, and for three of her grandchildren, not to mention the number of houses many of the royals enjoy (William and Catherine have three at the moment and Charles has more than that) plus the huge houses and apartments that the Queen gave to members of her family to live in. Charles has a good way to go if he wishes to scale things back. Nonetheless I enjoyed watching the funeral and I was proud of the pomp and ceremony the country put on. But if Charles wants to scale things down, he’s got a long way to go.

Thank you JdotJ.
I really enjoyed watching the Queen’s funeral, but I found my own mother’s funeral difficult. Thank you so much for your kind thoughts.

We left the country the day after the queen died (not deliberately; it was when our holiday was booked!) and came back last night.

I did feel I was missing out on something of national importance and even bought a VPN so I could watch the funeral on Monday, which I did. But I missed all the newspaper coverage. In our Sainsbury's weekly shop today I bought a copy of Hello! magazine, which I can't remember ever doing before, and it had everything I felt I had been missing. So now I am content and ready to move on. I can quite understand how those still in the UK over the last two weeks might have found it all a bit much.

The last two weeks have been extraordinary. Like millions of others we followed events from day to day and, of course, watched the Queen's funeral with great pride and respect. After what must have been a harrowing time for them, the RF are now continuing their mourning in private, and I think they need that time to be with their families, find some solace and prepare themselves for their new roles without their every move being reported.

We too watched Paddington II after the funeral. What a great film! It remined me that, although I have several teddy bears, I don't have a Paddington. I was surprised to find that there is not a cuddly replica of the bear in the film, they are all basically ordinary teddy bears in duffle coats, they don't have that expressive face!
So-oooooo, me being me, I'm going to try to make one. It's quite a few years since I last made a bear, but I'll have a go. A project for the winter evenings.

Did anyone else notice how nice and tidy London looked with so much of the street furniture removed around the funeral routes? A photographer's dream, and a bit like how I remember London as a child.

The media coverage was all part of the hugely orchestrated event which has been planned to intricate detail in the last decade, with the general plan for the death of a monarch having been in existence for many decades. Total saturation of the national broadcasting machine over a prolonged period is absolutely necessary for the bourgeoisie to convince the proletariat that monarchy and the constancy it brings are the only things that will bring stability to a nation. The coverage did go on for a long time but all part of the mission to get the nation grieving and when one considers that the Crown Estate is valued at around £17 billion when in the London Borough of Newham 20% of the population is homeless, it is surely necessary to persuade the masses that the RF is necessary. By the way - this is not a 'rant' just fact.

I guess royal weddings are more of a diplomatic thing , although this obviously can be toned down a lot, but lots of people do love the royal weddings [not seen one live yet, just bits of footage]
And having houses in different parts of the country, I guess it makes security easier, and not many places elsewhere would have the rooms needed for family and staff, both for official admin and entertaining dignitaries. Even politicians havae more than one home often, as well as Downing st, pm will have chequers, own home and possibly a London pied a terre
Most of the jewellery belongs to the Crown not the royals personally, the jewellry that is passed on as presents is personal jewellery, my mum gave me special jewellry when she was still alive, obviously not as expensive as that which they have, but that's all they own. I understood that at Christmas they give each other joke presents or little gifts, didn't Catherine give her mother in law a jar of home made chutney first christmas she spent with the family
As for Philip's send off, h had designed his own hearse, the landrover one, hardly a low key thing to do, but am sure that both hearses will be used in future
I was away for a fair bit of the mourning period, so apart from cancelled events, missed out on coverage, agree the queue cpverage was OTT but it was cheap TV, I guess and there was always other channels
Like others it brought back my mother's recent death at a great age, expected but not so suddenly, lots of issues as with lockdown, although it wasn't a covid death, so felt I knew a bit of what the family was feeling.
As for a grown man who can't put his own toothpaste on his own toothbrush, well I guess there are lots of old men who can't and need someone to do it for them, can't help thinking that probably the late Queen wasn't so helpless, he is really male ineptitude and strategic incompetence writ large isn't he, but I suppose like lots of old men who need help like that it makes work for someone and at least he isn't asking his wife to do it for him.
I did feel sorry for Harry having to scrat around at Luton airport to find a plane to take him up there, though.

and when one considers that the Crown Estate is valued at around £17 billion when in the London Borough of Newham 20% of the population is homeless, it is surely necessary to persuade the masses that the RF is necessary.

I don't think you understand what the Crown Estate is, GoldenAge.

I suggest you google it.

As for the toothpaste story. As I understand it it happened when he had broken his arm and had one hand out of action. I've had a broken collar bone and two broken wrists (not at the same time). I'd've been happy to have a bit of help with dressing, etc. at the time.

I had a tin box with a slab of chocolate in it as a gift to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. As did every other child I knew. We are all in our late 70’s now, those of us who survive. We have lived through a historical time that has delivered so many innovations that todays children would not recognise what was a normal life for me and others who were alive to see Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation. Hardly any family had a telephone and those who did had wires on poles leading to their houses with a wire leading off to take the telephone service into the house. Television was only on in the evenings and again, hardly anyone owned a tv. Many sets were purchased just to watch the coronation. It was recommended that the lights were switched off in the room where people watched tv and that a lamp should be placed on top of the tv. Todays children would consider how things were then, as archaic.

With you on these observations! I was watching old newsreel of other royal events and back in black and white days right up to mid 80s there was a kind of reverence bordering on idolatry about the royals. It mostly was coming from the older gens then, who would have lived through maybe king George's reign and the war years, and I realised many of the pensioners then would have been born in late 1800s !!!! They were fiercely defending the royals regardless of what was going on at the time and sounded as if they'd Chuck themselves to a bonfire if they were asked to do so by the Queen!!! Those days of blind deference/reverence have gone. Completely. In Normal humans..... (Still some obsequiousness about amongst those who think they're better than rest of us) and I'm glad it's gone!

GoldenAge

The media coverage was all part of the hugely orchestrated event which has been planned to intricate detail in the last decade, with the general plan for the death of a monarch having been in existence for many decades. Total saturation of the national broadcasting machine over a prolonged period is absolutely necessary for the bourgeoisie to convince the proletariat that monarchy and the constancy it brings are the only things that will bring stability to a nation. The coverage did go on for a long time but all part of the mission to get the nation grieving and when one considers that the Crown Estate is valued at around £17 billion when in the London Borough of Newham 20% of the population is homeless, it is surely necessary to persuade the masses that the RF is necessary. By the way - this is not a 'rant' just fact.

DH ex police joined in 1977(life on Mars.....aah.....the memories....) I digress! Anyway , plans for royal funeral were started in 1953!! No less. Tweaked and adjusted over the decades by either police/defence secretary/HRH herself, it's always there as it is as we speak for HRH Charles &co. All these massive public events are a plan and WiP for the services too, we do like a bit of organisational planning and we're ever so good at it too!