Windsor Castle

Today I attended an arts society event which was a guided tour of Windsor Castle. What a day for it, it rained constantly and was rather cold! I never took many photos as it was tricky holding the umbrella, holding my bag and trying to wipe the rain smeared lens. 

The guide was local and very knowledgeable. We started off by admiring the castle from the exterior, and she told us that the queen is in residence most weekends, and can still be seen, at the age of 93, riding her pony in the Great Park. The scenes were dull due to the miserable weather but I liked this shot of the lovely gardens. We all loved St George's Chapel, where Meghan and Harry got married, and it was familiar seeing it after having watched that royal wedding on TV. 

The state apartments, where the queen entertains dignitaries, are stunning with such a huge collection of valuable art and beautiful antique furniture. The entire castle and grounds were pristine, and despite the number of tourists coming through every day, there was not a blade of grass out of place, no sight of any litter, and even the carpets in the rooms which are walked on by thousands of people every day were spotless and not at all worn. I have added an extra of the rainy day in Windsor in what I thought was a typical British scene, and another one of the queen's private apartments, showing her huge sitting room above the double wooden doors.

Late last night we heard the exciting news that all the puppies had been born. The pregnancy scan had showed four puppies, and so the breeder estimated there would be six puppies (as not all the puppies are usually seen on a scan so this was a conservative estimate) and therefore there were six potential owners on her list. Sadly for the last person on the list, only five puppies were born - four girls and one boy and as we were third on the list the boy went to the first person on the list, so we are getting a female puppy! When we put our name down on the list we requested a male but did say we would take a female if there were no male puppies available. The breeder did check with me last night that I was happy with that and would have refunded my deposit if I wanted, but we decided we were very pleased to be getting a female puppy. About time we had more females in our house!! Very exciting news, and if everything goes well we will meet the puppies when they are about four weeks old.