Only 12 hours to go…..

Brass Plaque on Church Door © Ricky Yates

By the time I publish this blog post, there will be little more than 12 hours to go before their Royal Highnesses, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, arrive outside St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, to be greeted by me and the Churchwardens and then join us for worship. Judging by the comments I’ve received on my previous posts, there seems to be many readers enjoying my regular updates. So here is one final update in advance of the big day.

As I mentioned previously, I had yet another meeting in the late afternoon of Thursday 18^th March with various security personnel, both British and Czech, seeking to ascertain what would happen when the official party arrives, who would sit where and how the service would proceed. Hopefully, we’ve now got everything sorted.

Yesterday afternoon, I finally completed printing, folding and stapling 100 copies of a special Order of Service for the day.  I’ve been through it several times with my proofreader’s eye, which I still have from previous career in publishing, so hopefully it contains no glaring errors or omissions.

This morning, I completed compiling my sermon, trying to give an exposition of the Biblical Readings in a similar manner that I would without British royalty being present. Yet as I wrote, I always seemed to have in the back of my mind the thought, ‘…what would the Prince and the Duchess think if I said that?’ Of course, what I should have been thinking was not that the future King of the United Kingdom would be present, but rather that the King of Kings will be present!

This afternoon, I took the tram in the centre of Prague in order to take a variety of things, including the Orders of Service, to the Church so I have far fewer things to worry about tomorrow morning. It was very clear that the Prague city authorities had been busy. All around the Church the pavements had been swept. Likewise, the gutters and road surface had also been cleaned and the recycling bins completely removed.

No Parking on Sunday 21st March 2010 © Ricky Yates

As I mentioned in the previous post, even last Sunday there were already signs erected forbidding anyone to leave a parked car in the vicinity of the Church between 08.00 – 13.00 tomorrow. This afternoon I noticed that many local residents had already heeded the warning and removed their vehicles to a safer place. Those that fail to do so will discover that their cars have been physically lifted onto the back of a truck and removed to a secure compound and their owners will be considerably lighter in pocket after reclaiming them!

So hopefully, all is now ready – or at least as ready as it is ever going to be! And after all the cold and snow, even the weather has improved with temperatures in the mid-teens Celsius. However, the forecast is that we might have a few light rain showers tomorrow. I just hope and pray that they hold off until after the service is over and the Royal couple are on their way to their next engagement.