The Royal Visit – as it happened – part one

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall arrive at St. Clement's Church accompanied by the British Ambassador Sian MacLeod (far left) © Sybille Yates

Further to my previous posts entitled ‘A forthcoming Royal visit’, ‘Three days to go…….’ and ‘Only 12 hours to go…..’, today was the big day when, as part of their official visit to the Czech Republic, Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, joined the regular St. Clement’s Church congregation for our Sunday morning worship.

I set the alarm for 6am, just to be sure I had plenty of time to have a shower, eat breakfast and collect everything together, ready to travel into the city centre. In fact, the four-legged alarm clock called Oscar, landed on my bed before 6 am. I think he knew I had to get . . . → Read More: The Royal Visit – as it happened – part one

A forthcoming Royal Visit

St. Clement's Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague © Ricky Yates

This is a blog post that I started formulating almost two months ago. But for reasons that will be obvious as you read on further, it was only 48 hours ago that I was allowed to speak or write publicly about most of what follows.

The story starts on the morning of Monday 11th January 2010 when I received an email from the British Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Sian MacLeod, alerting me to ‘a visit next weekend by an official group from the UK who would very much like to visit your church’. Her colleague, the Second Secretary Alex Pykett would be in touch with me shortly to make arrangements and she expressed the hope that I would be able to help. I duly replied that I would help in whatever way I could.

A couple of . . . → Read More: A forthcoming Royal Visit

Celebrating the Queen’s Official Birthday

Our Official Invitation

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (to give my home country its full official name), does not have a National Day as such. Some of the constituent parts of the UK do have their own special day with the Welsh making much of ‘Dydd Dewi Sant – St. David’s Day’ on 1st March and the Irish, both north and south of the border, celebrating St. Patrick on 17th March.

The nearest we get to a National Day is the Queen’s Official Birthday. This is usually celebrated on the second Saturday of June each year. Queen Elizabeth the Second’s actual birthday is 21st April but she has her official birthday in June in the hope the weather will be better for events put on to mark the occasion, most notably, the Trooping of the Colour ceremony in London.

The occasion of the Queen’s . . . → Read More: Celebrating the Queen’s Official Birthday