Moving on.... after a day of sorting ourselves out - which I will write about later - we got to evening and time to meet the Queen & Prince Philip. With invitation in hand we set off with the rest of the royal media - other journalists and snappers (photographers) all dolled up in suits and looking very dapper.
We arrived at the hotel - sister to the fantastic Serena in Islamabad - to be man handled through security and shown to a small bare meeting room with the promise of alcohol. Whilst waiting for Her Majesty to arrive I chatted with various snappers young and old including the Sun's infamous Arthur Edwards - who is not only a great snapper but also very much into the royals surprisingly enough. Another one of the older ones, Anwar, knowing it was my first time guided me through the affair letting me know how many times he had done this over the years and years and how it worked...
Sadly the Queen was quite late. I say sadly as being a bunch on hacks all together in a room with free booze the evening could only go one way as far as we were concened. Very well!
With her arrival impending we were all ushered towards the door she would enter from - so it didn't look like them and us. I wasn't first in the queue by any means but joined a line that was being serviced by Prince Philip. He got to Anwar who was next to me and made a joke about the good old times on Britannia - and I agreed that those stories must be worth listening too. And he was off.
We waited a short while and the Queen came along the same queue. Anwar - again first, when asked by Her Majesty what he did said they had met many times before and he was a photographer. She quipped "But you all look the same behind your cameras".
Looking back I think I could have been a bit hasty. I offered my hand and jumped in that I was here on a mission to better my wife who had met Charles in India last year and meet her instead. To that she replied "You are both very competative then". Her hands though gloved seemed to be quiet sweaty - probably from the nervous media.
Swiftly, she moved on.
So much for a bit of Dutch courage getting the better of nerves.
Sadly no photo's of the event exist as it was a private affair - and fairly well oiled by the end of it as well.
Not strickly true. There was a film crew in the room shooting a documentary on Prince Philip for ITV, hosted by Sir Trev, so the object was to try and be in the back of every shot - just to make editing a challenge and increase chances of being in a 'Royal' doco!!
All in all not really as exciting as Kathy meeting Prince Charles which will one day be written about as well. No pictures of that either - though it does involve a fair amount of Champagne!!
