Monday 8 November 2010

Good Works: Me? At Buckingham Palace?



I  have just come across a note I scribbled whilst raising money for the RNLI  a few years back. Lady Somebody-or-Other nobbled me to turn up at 7 am at the Buckingham Palace tradesmen's entrance with a roll of stickers and seduce hapless Palace employees into putting money in my bucket.  Any time before 11 am (that point when I can generally manage to talk) is clearly out of my comfort zone so I accounted this expedition way beyond the call of duty. Besides, I wasn't best pleased to get Below Stairs as my station, fondly hoping to bump into the Queen or at least a brace of corgis.  (At least on this occasion I didn't have to wear yellow oilskins and a comedy red life-vest as I was once did outside Westminster Tube.)




Life Boat Flag Day 7.30 am  B Palace


Looking alert: resting one buttock on maroon baize table rather than settling passively onto  slightly tacky gilt chair with red satin seat.  I feel like a BBC anchor woman at such a positive angle.


I like the men who burrow through layers of mac/overcoat to find a suitable lapel for my sticker.


Always try to establish eye contact.


Strangely unregal and unromantic vestibule.. pipework, lino, fire extinguishers etc.


Someone drops a knob of butter off his toast onto the lino - I point out its presence to a footman and two housemaids but it's ignored.  I clean it up finally with the waxed paper from my stickers.


Yow!   A footman and a groom together  His jodhpurs marked all along the saddle area.

*    *    *
Blimey.

11 comments:

  1. Dear Rose, thank you for cheering up a dreary day with your humour. Just as well you were there with your wax paper to sort that knob of butter out! xx

    PS. I have something for you when we meet. How tall are you?

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  2. Thank you Christina. That sounds most intriguing. I'll email you!

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  3. First time I've laughed since our state elected, by a minority vote, the horrible bumptious male Palin equivalent. I may yet myself apply to her majesty for political asylum

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  4. DED - Let me welcome you over on behalf of Her Majesty. I am sorry about your election results.

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  5. I second Down East Dilettante. We just returned a seedy furniture salesman type to the Senate. He's a Burr, as in Burr, Aaron. Related to him, too. And that pretty much says it all.
    Send a couple of those lifeboats this way, if you have any to spare.

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  6. Depressing news from your side of the pond,eh. Thanks, as always, for your comment rurritable.

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  7. RNLI ROCKS! The Atlantic 21(?) boats were developed at Atlantic College where i workes and we had a hugely active RNLI group because of the tides on the Bristol Channel. And one of our grads was the first female RNLI staffer on the Thames in London.

    xoxo

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  8. Meg, absolutely! And Atlantic College a sterling institution. Trouble is everyone thinks that the RNLI have too much money among the charities, but they work within close limits of their income.

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  9. OT, Rose, but I thought you might enjoy this:
    http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=30071

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  10. Thanks for the laugh!

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