The Queen's Birthday Parade & Trooping the Colour

The Queen's actual birthday is April 21st, but, the official celebration is in June.

This little idiosyncrasy is made with the anticipation that June will have better weather than April.

I will, with great restraint, reserve comment on the weather. Ahem.....

The birthday celebrations begin with the Queen riding in a carriage from Buckingham Palace along The Mall to Horse Guards Parade.

At precisely 11:00am the parade begins with Trooping the Colour. The Queen  takes the Royal Salute, a tradition since the 17th century. (This is not to be confused with the Royal Wave.) She then inspects the ranks of all six Guards and the Household Cavalry.

There are over 1,000 officers and troops, 200 horses, and over 200 hundred musicians from 6 bands. The Queen has a keen eye and truly inspects - to give "constructive feedback".

After another Royal Salute the Entourage heads down The Mall back to Buckingham Palace.

John and I were positioned at Buckingham Palace.

We were there with the 4,385,232.5 tourists with their selfie sticks and the rude BBC media. (The crowd numbers were an approximate guesstimate on my part. It is not to be quoted as an official statistic.) 

For the most part we saw horses and riders, from the buttocks up.













And then there was an interesting Royal sighting....

In front of Buckingham Palace the Queen continued her inspection.

Then, after a 41 gun salute in Green Park, the Queen leads the Royal Family out on the balcony to wave.





Young Prince George was an instant crowd-pleaser. The infant Princess Charlotte demurred from a public appearance.

The picture is a bit blurry because they all got nervous when they knew I was taking their photo. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

It all ends with the RAF (Royal Air Force) Flypast.










I am really surprised, but sometimes John gets so excited it can be embarrassing. ;-)

Now that I have scoped out the action I have already staked out the best viewing spot for John to position himself next year for great photos!

I'll probably tag along just to keep him out of trouble.