27th June
Today the RBL Band had agreed to take part at short notice in a Veteran’s Day parade in Swindon. This is well outside their normal geographical range of activities and shows the dedication and commitment of the Band, who all give up their time for free (especially as England were playing in the World Cup as well). Remember, many of the Band members do work at weekends and it is not always possible to rearrange shifts and rotas at such short notice to make it feasible to send enough people to an event.
28th June
Today the invitation arrived for my old school reunion. Regular readers will know that I am attending this function shortly, together with my old friend Penelope. We grew up together on the Estate, and used to walk to school together from the age of five. Being slightly older, Penelope was in a different class to me all through Primary school, but we always walked to and from school every day and later on when we went to the bus stop for Senior School. Penelope went on to have a banking career with the Coutts (where the Queen keeps her money) and then after she married, she accompanied her husband on several overseas postings to far flung corners of the world. We always kept in touch, and after I married Spencer I used to write with news from the Manor, and she used to tell me about her life overseas. Now, they have returned to England, and live not far away from Basingstoke.
We shall be attending the reunion together. Penelope has informed me that the dress code is casual and that hats won’t be required (not even the one won on the Farnham Lions tombola), but I shall still wear one of my nice floral dresses that I wore to the Palace for a garden party recently. I have dug out some old photos of the 1967 nativity play, the 1971 school netball team that we both feature in, as well as some of us on the first day at school in our new uniforms. It should be a fun event. I wonder if I will recognise anybody?