Food and snippets – more glorious food – Dinner a la Royals ...2/2

Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace

This is my last eclectic post of the Royal Wedding covering letters, inspiring stories, fun tales, and amazing statistics, as well as some salivating foods ... 

‘Police Rescue’ – a 91 year old woman whose tv had been stolen, was able to watch the Wedding at home, after the local bobby dashed back and brought her his spare set = good deed for the day ... blessings to the bobby .. and must have made the lady’s day.

At least life went on ... the police were working ... I expect the bobby above, like the following cartoon portrayed, wished otherwise ... the cartoon shows two Guardsmen outside Buckingham Palace .. saying under their breath to each other “I could have done with the day off” ...!

Castle of Me

Two billion people worldwide are estimated to have watched the wedding on tv ... getting up at all hours of the day and night ... 9 horses made up the Grey Escort – but did you see the poor Trooper fall of his horse?  His pride dented – the horse very sensibly went straight on home passing the newlyweds in their carriage ...

.. one interesting fact is that apparently the new Duchess is allergic to horses – perhaps joining the Royal Family is not such a wise idea .... bearing in mind their love of all things equine!

At the marriage service at the Abbey  – most of the 1,900 guests being described as the Peacock Parade; 650 then went on to the lunchtime reception at Buckingham Palace; while 300 of their close family and friends returned for the evening reception – the Night in White Satin ...

Kate’s walk down the aisle took 4 minutes ... the whole event at the Abbey from the first guests arriving to the RAF fly-past was 5 hours and 15 minutes.

Elderflowers steeping before being
turned into cordial

Of the guest breakdown ... there were 50 members of the Royal Family, 40 members of foreign royal families, 200 members of Government, Parliament and Diplomatic Corps, 80 guests drawn from Prince William’s charities, 60 governors-general and realm prime ministers, 30 members of the Armed Forces .... and more than 1,000 family and friends ... it was remarked that there were very few celebrities (blessing!).

The chefs could have done with a day off too – but who would have made the 10,000 canapés - fortunately created and served by the Queen’s head chef and 21 staff.  That chocolate cake was made of 1,700 Rich Tea biscuits – well I’d have used chocolate digestives! – but I guess the 40lbs (18 kgs) of chocolate that went in to it made up for the loss of chocolate digestives.

Everyone present at dinner was deemed “equally important” to the newlyweds, the tables were a mix of royalty, family members and friends of the couple.  And in keeping with the ‘organic and local’ theme – the guests were treated to a menu of British food – created by Anton Mosimann, the leading chef and owner of the Mosimann’s private dining club in Belgravia, where the Prince and his wife often dine.

Peach Bellini

The Evening reception menu was as follows:

Drinks:  Champagne, peach bellinis, elderflower cocktail and soft drinks ..

Starter:  Dressed crab, served with mini crab timbale, crawfish and prawns from Wales, salmon from South Uist and Hebridean langoustine

Main Course: Lamb came from Castle of Mey, the former Scottish residence of the Queen Mother, – done three ways ... served with spring vegetables from Prince Charles’ organic farm at Highgrove (this reminds me of the old days when the big houses sent produce from their estates to feed the family when they were at their London homes).

Desserts:  Three mini puddings served together: trifle, chocolate fondant, ice-cream in brandy snap baskets.

Wines:   White Mersault Burgundy         Red Pomerol Claret

Speeches: brilliant apparently ...

They then collapsed onto sofas to chat, or to dance and disco til nearly dawn ... at 2.00 am bacon butties were served up - and the official last dance was “She Loves You” by The Beatles ... finishing off with ‘spectacular fireworks’, complete with Catherine Wheel ...   (must have had a special dispensation for that – fireworks have to be over by 10.00pm ...?!)

Ferry leaving the Hebrides for Skye

Prince William was affectionately called ‘Wombat’ by his parents, or ‘Wills’ as he was more often known by the general public ... and it was reported that at age seven, the Prince said to his mother that he thought he’d like to be a policeman when he grew up, so that he could protect her – a statement to which Prince Harry replied “Oh, no you can’t you’ve got to be King” – bit of a letdown by his brother I’d have thought for a small boy ...

Both William and Kate, after finishing their schooling at Eton and Marlborough College, took part in the Raleigh International Programme ... (a UK-based youth and sustainable development charity) before going on to St Andrews University – where they both achieved their degrees – William in geography, and Kate in the History of Art.  While there the students called Prince William ‘Steve’ to put journalists off track.

View of Caleta Tortel

with its wooden walkways 

William went to Tortel in Chile, as part of the Raleigh Programme, for ten weeks teaching children in the town; it was here that he shared common household chores, including cleaning the toilet, and volunteering as the guest radio jockey for the local radio station.

Tortel is a Chilean commune located at the outflow of Baker and Pascua River to the Pacific Ocean between the Northern and Southern Patagonian Ice Field.

The pair holidayed and became engaged at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya.

To change the subject - Anyone like crosswords?  In a letter to the Saturday Times – a man had written in saying:  “Sir, determined to ignore the royal wedding, I settled down to do Friday’s crossword only to find the compiler at anticipated my resistance and imbued it with a form of Chinese torture: so I gave in and watched the whole thing on television.  It was magnificent.”  .... fun comment-letter!  ... and to finish ...

Wildlife Sanctuary in Lewa,

north Kenya.

The Princes have matured, one with great dignity and the other with more than a streak of impishness.  They have accepted their father’s remarriage with equanimity, fully realising the import of seeing a parent settled and happy ...

And now that Prince Charles’ day has been made – he has a daughter, and has seen one son happily married to his soulmate ... something many of us wondered if the Royals could ever achieve .. to me it heralds a new beginning.

It’s been a glorious time in this green and pleasant land of ours ... well please send us some rain here in the South-East and we’ll be happier ...


The Queen has become the second longest serving monarch, and if she is still reigning on 10 September, 2015 - then she will be the longest, beating Queen Victoria's reign.  Prince Charles is now the longest monarch in waiting. 

Dear Mr Postman – my Mama has certainly had times when she’s been awake and chatty – so that makes life fun for her and for the staff, our therapists and I ... we can enjoy and give her some caring chit chat, lots of laughter and smiles, and I've read some quite serious articles, which she always interacts with ... 

Most of the information in this post has been extracted from the print versions The Saturday Times and Sunday Telegraph, while I also used Wikipedia for extra material.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

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