My husband the OBE
Or, Peter’s Birthday Adventure*
The OBE and his wife
So, long-term readers will remember that Peter was on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List last June with an OBE for Contributions to Literature.** And that then he had to loiter and dally, waiting for the royal summons into the presence for the object itself to be bestowed.***
The object itself.
But when the invitation finally arrived it was to Windsor Castle, not Buckingham Palace. In the first place . . . meh. I want Buck House. In the second place, Windsor is a pig to get to from here. In the third place, it’s a mob scene, and you have to hang around and hang around. I was teetering on the brink of saying that I thought I wouldn’t go, thanks, and since the gong-receiver is only allowed four guests, that would mean that the other four† got to go. But Peter was teetering too—Peter likes hanging around and hanging around even less at eighty-two than I do at fifty-seven—and it turns out you have an alternative option of getting the job done locally. So he went for that.
And this was a very good call, not only on the commuting front. Our local officers of the queen are a very nice lot. Peter is the only local OBE this year so he was able not only to request the ceremony happen on his birthday† but he was also given permission to bring five guests.†† There’s food after the ceremony††† and when he asked if he could bring a birthday cake they said oooh, yes please.‡
Cake before.
Cake after.
To my intense disgust I did not get a good photo of the Lord Lieutenant, who performed the black-goat sacrifice etc.‡‡ I liked her. She is a hoot, although I may not think so after I get my first invitation to a black-tie dinner for £200 a plate for one of her pet charity trusts.‡‡‡ And as someone who has sweated my persona as a Woman Who Does Things and Takes as Little Faecal Matter in the Process as Possible, the LL has the aura of one who disintegrates faecal matter with a glance and has never wasted any time on crises of confidence.§ She is a model to us all.
Meanwhile, I’m so frelling tired§§ I am well past the composition of coherent sentences. If I’ve left out anything important I’ll get it in later. . . . That sound you hear is me falling off my chair. I’m sure the hellhounds will come and keep me warm if I sleep on the floor for a while. . . .
Two famous authors. One of them has a medal.
* * *
* Or, For godssake I have a novel to finish in six days
** Peter wants me to point out that it’s not the queen’s birthday. It’s George III’s birthday, which has been adopted as The Royal Birthday because it’s usefully at the opposite end of the year from New Year’s. And the New Year’s Honours List, which is the show all over again with a new bunch of gongees^.
^ Which makes the queen a gonger, which is probably treasonous.
*** The warrant, which is the piece of paper you get framed and hang on your wall, arrived a while back. I blogged about that too. Of course.
† And they gave him a bottle of champagne as a birthday present. I like these people.
†† Here we go again with the silliness of this blog. I suppose I could invent a whole new family for Peter so as to Maintain Privacy but I have enough trouble keeping the real ones straight.^ And you can frelling look them up if you want to. Peter has four kids. One of them lives in Scotland but the other three are within a couple hours’ drive (in three different directions). When everyone shook down in terms of availability we were left with one son, one daughter, and two grandchildren who might like to come watch their forebear receive his gong. And a wife. Five. Oops.
I’ve actually got a pic of the whole mob of us but I need to email round and see if everyone else wants to be immortalised on a slightly insane blog. Or not. I am also going to see if I can poach anybody else’s photos.
^ Peter is one of four brothers and there were twelve first cousins all of whom grew up together, married+ and reproduced, and the kids all have kids and . . .
+ Sometimes more than once
††† They also said it was their first Queen’s Honours birthday cake.
‡ They receive serious extra points from me for providing good tea. Proper loose tea with character, and brewed strong.
‡‡ It tickles, said the goat, and was sent home with a large bag of fresh thistles as reward for his part in the festivities.
‡‡‡ She’s very hot on the cathedral, and she figured she had me when I admitted I’d rung bells there. She’s probably right, but not for £200/plate black-tie dinners.
§ She also loves lobster. This is an important attribute in a public official. She asked me when was the best time of year to visit Maine. I told her autumn, then you get the foliage fireworks too.
§§ There are yet further crises going on off stage. Isn’t the novel-in-six-days enough?
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