Guard outside Buckingham Palace

Guard outside Buckingham Palace

Originally uploaded by dearbarbie.

This photo is of Buckingham Palace, taken from a brief walkabout on the way to another.

I collected my Duke of Edinburgh’s Award from St. James’ Palace in a ceremony on Wednesday. This is an award (www.theaward.org) that I’ve been working towards since I was 14 - it involves various activities including several hiking expeditions (up to 50 miles), physical tests, service to the community and charity work, residential stays, and learning new skills, and had to be finished by the time I was 25. Obviously, Uni got in the way so it was put on hold for a while, and I was officially signed-off a week before my 25th birthday this year!

My parents came to London to stay for the night although I was only allowed one person in the Palace with me to see my collect my award.
It was a good day; we were presented the awards by Alan Hicks (mountaineer) in the Picture Gallery after a ‘meet and greet’ with HRH himself - we had a brief conversation and I was quite nervous, I totally clammed up although he made some comedy comments about my time lecturing English in China.

My Mum was my permitted guest, and after security checks we entered the Palace. We were led through hallways into the Picture Gallery and waiting in two groups - parents seated opposite the people collecting the award, 4 groups of about 20 young people. We, the ‘awardees’, were to stand in a semi-circle as soon as Prince Philip entered the room, and were given instructions on how to address him. He came to talk to the group about our award experiences, and if any of us had done some of the award in other countries.

A really pleasant bloke, he was, very chirpy and witty, although he could have offered me a nice cup of tea - it was freezing and wet outside! Mum ordered some professional photos to be done so now I’m dreading seeing those - I hate having those kind of pictures taken!! He was in the room about 15 minutes, before Alan Hicks took the floor again with some inspirational quotes for the group - most of the people there were around 18 years old, completing it before or during University, but there were a few my age too. We were in the Palace for about 2.5 hours before collecting our coats and heading for dinner.

K x