Images and thoughts of today

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I can’t watch…again…

Phew ...

Blossoming

I’ve never heard of that before Polly Dolly. Was it just a family thing?

You say your neighbour has young children so he probably needs to get the washing out. Not that anyone needs an excuse for putting washing out.

No, he lives alone, has no children and is also an ex-serviceman, so you'd think he would have some decorum.

So touching - as was the sight of Emma, the Queen’s Highland pony with the Royal grooms.

I see Aveline beat me to it!

So that’s it. We’ll never see her again. Proper crying now

I’m not sure why putting out washing lacks decorum. I’ve put some out in my back garden, have been watching the funeral on and off.

Whitewavemark2

Rachel Clarke

@doctor_oxford

Incredibly poignant cartoon by ⁦@mortenmorland⁩ in today’s Times.

If you know someone who lives alone, perhaps bereaved, for whom today may hit especially hard, perhaps give them a ring later on

This

Her lovely wee dogs were present.

Callistemon21

The Queen's Piper, the sound of the bagpipes fading away

That sets me off every time.

Emma ?

My daughter was watching the funeral on TV with her 4-year-old son who said "Yes, the coffin is taken away and you are buried elsewhere, underground, and then you are born again." She knows he hasn't been discussing or heard anything about this issue before so we've got no idea where that came from.

Those two little corgis brought tears to my eyes!

My thoughts of the day was on the funeral of the Queen. All the families left behind, and seriously hoping ‘that if this doesn’t do it, then I don’t know what will’ that the relationship between William and Harry and their partners & family will be repaired.

Oh and me too, I have had to turn away every time the guardsmen had to put her on catafalque or take her off to put her on the gun Carraige or carrying her down the aisle. I’m sure they’ve probably rehearsed it a lot of times but I find it heart stopping
I think I read somewhere once that the coffin bearers are given a medal after something like this and they thoroughly deserve it, They will have made their mums and grans so proud

I thought the whole day was magnificently planned and saw Elizabeth's hand all over it, from British music to her horse and dogs, all personal touches.

The marching was second to none, everything worked like clockwork and we should be very proud of ourselves as a nation.

I can only imagine the amount of detailed planning necessary to achieve such a brilliant day. Well done to all those concerned.

This headline in The Independent

I woke this morning to the reminder that Britain’s newly-anointed king would be exempt from tax on the Queen’s £650 million estate

I held it together all day, even when they showed Emma and the corgis, but the bit that got me was when they took the orb, scepter and crown off the coffin and laid them on the altar.

I am old enough to remember her receiving them at her Coronation, and I know she couldn't take them with her, but to me that act was very powerful and a little upsetting. Still weeping as I write this.

The wonderful piper, so haunting and beautiful as he fades into the distance.

Taxation. The Queen pays tax. In 1992, The Queen volunteered to pay income tax and capital gains tax, and since 1993 her personal income has been taxable as for any other taxpayer. The Queen has always been subject to Value Added Tax and pays local rates on a voluntary basis.

Actually I can understand Polly Dolly’s remarks. If it’s a nice day I will often hang out washing on a Sunday, my mother and grandmother would have been appalled. The only exception made would be for nappies. Washing hung out today would have been totally beyond the pale in their eyes. Oh, and curtains would be drawn during the funeral, as they would in every other house in the neighbourhood. It’s just how things were, you accepted them and they stick with you…….mostly.

Many moments for me. The sailors pulling the gun carriage. The magnificent procession down the Long Walk with the pipes and bands playing. The Queens groom with her pony Emma and the stable girls saying goodbye. The corgis brought out. The Windsor staff lined up outside the castle. So many tearful moments.

The whole Royal family must be exhausted. My thoughts are with them all. It's been a long 11 days for everyone.

It would never even have occurred to me NOT to put washing out...