It was a co-incidence that I happened to be in England for the Coronation on Saturday 6 May 2023.

Growing up in Australia, I used to have to sing “God Save The Queen” at assembly each morning, at least for the first couple of years of primary school in Brisbane.

Throughout my life, I’ve had mixed emotions about the British Royals.

I actually met Prince Charles in London once, it was very brief. I was exploring London one day when I saw a crowd, and asked the policeman what people were waiting for. Prince Charles was arriving at some kind of event, so I hung around the barriers for a while and was one of the people he stopped briefly to speak to on his way in. I told him I was from Australia, and I think his response was “jolly good”!  Someone took a photo for me, and that was that!

Regardless of opinion though, it was a very unique experience to watch this event in Winchester Cathedral.

We were visiting friends for a few days and just so happened that it was also the coronation while we were there.  Once we arrived in the UK we saw flags everywhere, and my initial thought was that the UK had recently become paticularly patriotic!

I decided to join the festivities and bought myself some crown earrings for the occasion.

The ceremony itself was quite long, and we didn’t sit in the Cathedral for the whole thing – but ended up going to have something to eat nearby. 

It was a very wet day, and there weren’t as many people out and about as we expected. Still, it was a festive kind of feel and something that I’ll remember.