All change

Life pottered on today in its normal Thursday path - the early shop in the freezing but almost completed Morrison's, the late and avidly anticipated breakfast, the less-than-usual ironing (it's been sitting there a while) - until the afternoon. Then, as I somnolently caught up on the papers, my phone burst into life (did I mention I'd put Beethoven's Ode to Joy as my ring tone?) reminding me, through a request for the zoom link, that I had an online Vestry meeting to attend in ten minutes ...

And that was when there were signs of change. News updates about royals converging on Balmoral made it seem pretty final. A walk before dinner was over before the news was confirmed - I even had time to do most of my Italian before the lesson was interrupted by the headline splashed over the screen. The Queen had died.

I've been listening since then to the commentaries, all pointing out how for "most people" Elizabeth has been Queen all their lives. But I can remember the day that the King died - died, as it seemed to the six year old me, on the radio. I remember my mother being sad, people being solemn. The Coronation took place a few days after I had my tonsils taken out on the kitchen table of our flat in Glasgow; my first post-surgery outing was to the neighbour's on the floor below to watch the ceremony on their television, the only one in the close. I remember how the entire school, or so it seemed, was taken to the Cosmo cinema in Glasgow to watch two films, back-to-back: The Coronation (in colour!) and the Ascent of Everest, which was announced to coincide with the coronation. 

I know that they've been preparing for this day in the news media for years - decades, even. I can't help feeling that Huw Edwards and Nicholas Witchell are looking a tad exhausted. And I've been looking at responses on social media - Twitter again, Facebook (less acrimonious), even Blipfoto. The sheer emotional tone-deafness of some contributors is monumental. I've never been a fervent monarchist; I believe that self-determination is the natural state of a country; I've never felt the urge to stand in front of a palace as part of an adoring crowd. But I admire a woman who has stuck to her task well past the age when the rest of us say "enough, already", and I know how her family will be feeling this night. I also know that I consider it a really good end, to be working two days ago and then to die peacefully in a much-loved home. It's not heart-breaking; it's life and it's death. 

As we say in the church of which I am a part, every time we pray for the faithful departed: May she rest in peace and rise in glory.