Friday April 29th

So the big day has come and gone. William and Kate are finally married and the whole of Britain came to a standstill. It must have been some event as even Marks and Spencer shut their doors at lunchtime! If you are a Facebook user you could not escape it was the day of the Royal Wedding anyway as many people were giving minute by minute updates as their statuses. Now I am a proud Englishman don't get me wrong. AND I wish the couple all the best and every happiness, but there is a limit to what you can take in, and for me people watching things on TV and then giving running commentaries to all their friends as if they have no access to the TV is one of the things I get peeved about. If you are that interested in it you should not be bothering with Facebook while it is on! After all with billions of other people watching the same thing there is no point relaying updates every minute as your friends were probably watching it anyway and if they weren't they would not want your updates pissing them off all the time. Lecture over.

I spent the first part of the morning watching TV and then thought that if everyone else was doing the same I could go shopping and miss all the queues. As it turned up most of the shops were fairly empty but there were a few 100 people around the giant screen watching the event unveil itself. Cheers went up as the couple walked on to the balcony at Buckingham Palace and when they kissed there was a huge roar, hand clapping and flag waving.

This evening I walked up to the Hoe where the fair is on for another week. The sunset was beautiful. Given the photos of the full moon the other week and this sunset tonight I think the only thing I have left to get now is a really nice sunrise. Two things prevent this, the most important point being that I am never up in time for a sunrise, although I did attempt it the other week just to be let down by a cloudy sky.

Tonight there was a firework display to celebrate the wedding so I took my camera along to take some photos. Just before the fireworks started my attention was taken by a small crowd trying to light a number of sky lanterns. Having tried on the wind swept Hoe before I did not think they would have much luck. Sure enough despite getting three lanterns lit none of them actually made it up in the air. One hit a fence and burst into flames, one gained a little height but then headed in my direction just inches from the ground and promptly skipped over a wall and headed straight for the sea, never to be seen again. I think by then the group gave up and extinguished the last one they had lit and put the other unlit ones back in their bags!

To finish off the evening I walked around the Barbican and treated myself to a Jasperizer!!