This week has kind of sucked. Congressional Baseball tragedy. Grenfell is burning. Philando Castile gets no justice. FITZGERALD experiences a nightmare at sea. And those are just some things on the news wires that are irking me. We’re at Saturday evening now, and I half-think that London is trying to do a bit of cleaning up after it all by balancing the bad news with pleasant weather. Actually, it’s just June and this sort of meteorological phenomenon is a fact of life. But still— I’m reaching for lighter thoughts, or at a small degree of diversion.

I went out this morning on a walk, not really intending to go much of anywhere. I like cruising this city on foot, and the fact that I live on a hill makes each departure more or less welcomed, because the easy descent always adds a bit of a spring in my step.  The fact that for at least once I could maybe count on no rain also allowed for me to travel even lighter than usual. Nice touch.

My week made me sad. I needed the sun to warm my brain for a few hours.

After about an hour or so, I found myself near Buckingham Palace.  The Green Park environs were pretty crowded, but I figured this was standard for central London in the spring. As I moved closer to the Palace, there were lots of people lining up around the perimeter. Obviously I had done zero research before stepping out my front door, because something was afoot.

I’ve got a collection of British friends with whom I enjoy random texting conversations at almost any hour of the day. I can rely on them to provide not only honest commentary, but translations of the British language whenever I am in doubt. So when a mystery band started to come up up on me I didn’t hesitate to snap a photo and send it out for some identification.

I was told without having to do any googling that today was Trooping the Colour, an event that, in recent centuries coincides with the Sovereign’s standing summer birthday (remember, she’s got two). It involves lots of marching, military pomp and Royal attendance. Sometimes I feel like these things are put on just to see what the Queen and other female royals will be wearing—but that’s my inside voice talking. And because I’ve had a long week, that’s all I’m going to tell you. If you’re on my website, then you’ve got the internet at your fingertips to learn more about the Trooping. And if you’re lazy like me, you can always reach out to a favourite British contact. In return, he will appreciate that I’ve used British words twice in this paragraph.

I wasn’t going to stick around for this spectacle. For one, I’m not a big fan of massive, sweaty crowds—and furthermore, terrorists have demonstrated since time immemorial that they love targeting these things. But I happened to be down here, and my texting conversation assured me that this was a London highlight of the year. Yar. Off we go.

It wasn’t long before I started to hear lots of blam! noises.  Cannons, as any kid growing up in my Mashpee neighborhood would have been able to divine. This caught my interest, even from the farther reaches of Hyde Park Corner. I’m a sucker for cannons, and as such I quick-stepped my way closer to Buckingham Palace again in order to catch the festivities in action.

The cannons were great, as were the poor bastards dressed in their very finest uniforms on this day that got up to 29°C (that’s 84 °F which also translates to very hot for London). It wasn’t until I was almost walking past that I discovered what it was all about.  Again, I wasn’t so much there for the Trooping as I was wandering around.

Ever mindful of getting plowed down by terrorists, and also reflecting on so much pageantry while not even five miles away stood the charred skeleton of Grenfell Tower, I still got as close to the Palace as I could. Up on the balcony, I could make out the collection of people pressed against the red valance. Must be the royal people. I had no idea where we were in the schedule of events, but most of the groundlings seemed to have their phones trained to the sky. So I did the same.

In no time we had a series of planes flying over. It was clear that the Royal Air Force was doing a fly-past. Some of the profiles I could identify, like the Typhoons, others I had to go back later and see what they were.

I’m not the best at standing around for any sort of ceremony (which is hilarious given my day job), but I think that I arrived just in time for the best parts: the fly-past, the cannon fire and not much else. Before I knew it we were wrapping things up with the Red Arrows zipping overhead in a colorful finale and then a solemn rendition of God Save The Queen. Then everyone started to leave. My skills of observation determined that Trooping 2017 had concluded, and I wove my way in with the drifting crowds feeling like I had just done the worst job of touristing this big event.

I love to people watch. It’s one of my favorite pastimes.  And today, I notice at least 15 people were wearing Guns N’Roses t-shirts. Men and women. My internet searching skills have been lackluster for today, so given the fact that these people were here to see the Queen, I conclude that she is a huge a fan of Appetite for Destruction. I mean, who isn’t?

In all I think I walked about 10 miles today on my walk to nowhere. Like I said, I live on a hill, and once you’ve got some momentum under you it’s easy to go for miles and miles without realizing it. It was nice to end up at a celebration of sorts, and to push everything else that is wrong off to the corners at least for a few moments.

And London continues to be peppered with ostentatious sights that wade into the outrageous. I feel as though here, more than in many other cities, the city center spills over with the most ridiculous expressions of wealth. From the silver dipped- Mercedes pasted with dentist office adverts to the Size 000 Arm Candy who is shuffle-stepping out of Alexander McQueen with some old dude on her arm—the world is full of contradictions. Even on a sunny day. But at least on days like today it all seems a little bit easier to manage.