She was there, but didn't come out and say Hello

Ben and Jill invited us to go to Windsor with them on Saturday. What a great place! I can't believe it's taken me more than 30 years to see one of the UK's most popular tourist attractions. Here's all of us (minus Mum, who's taking the picture) in front of the Round Tower.

Rather than tell you all about the things to see there (you can just go and see for yourself), I'll just go over a couple of memorable moments from the day: -

When we got there we had to go through airport-like security. This took longer than it should have because, as usual, it didn't occur to people to take their coats off until they got to the front of the queue, despite the fact that they'd seen everyone else taking their coats off. Maybe they thought the rules would change when it was their turn? More amazing, though, was the fact that the bloke in the party in front of us had a knife on him and he had to hand it over, have it labelled and be given the drill on how to pick it up when he left. Seriously? A knife? This was no swiss army knife either; what made him think it would be a good idea to bring it in the first place? This is Windsor, not South-East London...

We arrived just in time to watch the changing of the guard so we got ourselves a good vantage point, just behind an area of lawn that had 'keep off the grass' signs all over it, so we thought our view would be good. It was, but not as good as it would have been if all the people who ignored the signs hadn't stood in front of us. It was so funny watching people 'sneak' across the grass - they looked like they were in a pantomime, you know the types, crouching down and tip-toeing, kind of slow-motion creeping. Because that makes them look less conspicuous.

While we were looking round St George's Chapel, the custodians told us that the fire alarm was going off and we all had to evacuate. Mum, Jill, Ben and I were all closest to the door of the opposite side of the building from the entrance, and in the time it took us to walk round to the front - only a couple of minutes - they were letting people back in again. Turned out there's an area near the front of the chapel, as there is in a lot of churches, where you can light a candle if you want. Apparently there were so many candles lit that they set off the fire alarm. Had it never occurred to anyone before now that this might happen???

Liz was there - the flag was flying - but for some reason, she didn't find it necessary to come out and shake our hands. Maybe next time.