The Queen's Dresses

Every now and again I get to go to the big city and pretend I'm all fancy. Last Autumn my friend Julie asked me if I wanted to go down to London, tour Buckingham Palace and see their special exhibit on the queen's gowns. I said yes. Duh! 

In Green Park

We went down on the morning train, arriving in time to grab lunch take-away in the train station and heading to Green Park for a little picnic. When the sun's out in England, you make the most of it!

How Green Park got its name: 

King Charles II was quite a cad. He loved women and was rather flamboyant. One day he and his entourage, including his wife and her ladies-in-waiting, took a stroll through what is now called Green Park.  One of the men gathered a bunch of flowers growing in the park and gave them to the king and told him he should present them to the loveliest woman in the park. Everyone looked at the king and queen, standing next to one another and smiled, expecting a lovely little scene. But the king took the bouquet over to one of the other ladies, bowed low, and presented her, not his wife, with the flowers. The queen was furious (as anyone would be in such a scenario) and demanded that every flower in the park be ripped out and never be re-planted. To this day, Green Park is a gorgeous, grassy park… with not a single flower. 

In the Queen's backyard

The dresses on exhibit were absolutely fantastic! Sadly, no pictures were allowed, but we not only saw many of her dresses from diplomatic events, but also her wedding and coronation dresses. She is a tiny woman and was super-thin when she was younger. I don't think I would have ever been able to fit into any of her 'younger days' frocks!   

Buckingham Palace's back patio and garden

We left Buckingham Palace with 30 minutes to get back to Kings Cross station to catch our train. We exited the palace far from the entrance and had to hoof it to the closest tube station. It was rush hour and we had to ride the tube for 6, painfully slow stops. When we arrived at Kings Cross tube station we had six minutes to run from the platform, up several escalators, over to the trains station, find our train platform and get on. We made it with two minutes to spare, sweaty and out of breath. But we made it!