Prince Felipe became King Felipe in a rather understated ceremony, a sort of austerity signing in. They still had the regulation royal-family-on-the-balcony photo. And austerity or no, lots of money was spent on clothes for the ladies involved. A good deal of reporting in La Voz de Galicia went into details of what Letizia (now queen) and Sofía (presumably now queen mother) and even the little princesses Beatriz and Leonor were wearing. The Infanta Cristina, still in disgrace, didn’t get to dress up and attend the ceremony; she had to watch it all on TV. There was even reporting on the behaviour of the little infantas: the older child sat quietly through the speeches and seemed to listen intently while the younger child fidgeted, wriggled and moved around a lot. Someone’s probably tipped the older daughter the wink that she has a good chance of becoming queen one day and needs to learn how to do it.
We should watch these two in the news over the years to come. If you think about our two princes, William and Harry, the older of the two was always reported as a bit of a goody two shoes while Harry was the one who wore inappropriate fancy dress costumes and was seen to be ogling the bridesmaid’s derrière at his brother’s wedding. We shall see!!
Back to the football: my nine year old grandson has been telling me about all the brilliant players on the Uruguay team, reassuring me that I shouldn’t be too disappointed if we lose. I must say that I’m not very likely to be disappointed but I haven’t disillusioned him. He enjoys the whole thing so much. As for Spain, well, I just don’t know what happened to the team who won four years ago. Maybe it’s the death of Paul the octopus!
Life goes on, however, and we still have Ascot. On Tuesday, as I waited for my Italian teacher to arrive for our last class of the year, I half watched on a huge screen in the foyer of the venue in Manchester the arrival of the queen at Ascot in a fancy coach, accompanied by Prince Philip, possibly Prince Charles and certainly Prince William. The commentator was gushing about how nice it was to see the Duke of Edinburg waving his hat around and how lovely it was for the queen to be accompanied by three generations of royal males. It was almost enough to have me out on the streets calling for a referendum on having a republic (forget about one for staying in Europe) as some Spaniards have been calling for!!!
Calming down a little, here are a few pictures of Ladies’ Day and the hats.
Some are traditional froth.
Others clearly get into the spirit of this being about horse racing.
And others are just plain silly. Well, really they are all silly but some are sillier than others.
That’s all!
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