Coronation!

Saturday 6 May
I just can’t seem to keep up at present - running 12 days behind!
We were up at about 5.15 this morning to watch the Coronation! What a wonderful event, and such amazing organization and precision. A pity the weather didn’t cooperate, but other than that, it all went so well. Once the ceremony and the procession back to Buckingham Palace was over, we kept the TV on and half watched it, but had to start giving our attention to getting things ready for our church’s International Day in the afternoon. (See extra)
This was the first time this event had been held, and was the idea of P. a very active Indian member of our congregation, who still goes back regularly to India, as he is involved with a school over there. In fact he is leaving on Tuesday for five or six weeks. Besides P and us, there was one other couple from the congregation, who had direct international roots, the wife of this couple, her grandfather had come from Germany. The other countries represented all had connections in one form or another with a church member. Other countries represented besides India and the United Kingdom were Germany, Taiwan, Japan, Cameroon, Eritrea (the refugee family our church has hosted, and live in the former manse next door), El Salvador and the Philippines. There was some entertainment - two bagpipers and a Chinese musical instrument group, largely children, playing traditional Chinese instruments. Everyone was asked to provide some representative food, I took scones and a Victoria sandwich, but I think the Eritrean family took the prize, presenting three hot dishes, with two different types of bread! The event had been publicized well and was a great success, with almost 200 non church members attending! P and L the two organizers had also come up with the idea of printing small “passports” and providing mini stamps for each country, so children could go around getting their passports stamped. We had thought of playing the coronation from Rogers laptop, but unfortunately there wasn’t an outlet handy, and neither we or P. Had thought to bring extension cables. Naturally, a number of people asked us about it or brought it up in conversation.