Changing the Squirrels at Buckingham Palace

Its finally here!!!  Its New Year's Eve and we have an awesome day planned!!  The day is going to be split up into 3 main chunks - first off, we have a "Beneath the Bearskin" experience (!) tour planned for the morning, then ManpanionTM and the Squids are off for the afternoon to see the Lion King musical at Covent Garden, and then.... drumroll, please!!  We have the best seats in the house for the London New Year's Eve fireworks!!!!  More on that later.....

So, to our first activity for the day - Here's the description in our day-by-day itinerary that our travel agent prepared for us:

"Under the Bearskin’ Experience at The Household Cavalry Museum with a specialist 

You will be met by the Museum Specialist and enjoy a privately led tour around the Museum. On the tour you’ll have the chance to try on the Troopers metal helmets and breastplates which were once worn in battle. You’ll even get the opportunity to try on a Bearskin hat and red tunic and feel like a real servicing officer!  Departing the Museum, you will walk down the Mall towards St James Palace. Take the best spots on the Mall to watch the Guards and Band, so close you can almost touch them! 

I wasn't sure what to expect but I thought it would certainly be a very British and traditional event for ManpanionTM and the squids to witness.  Our private guide, a chap called Martin who had been in the Household Cavalry for 16yrs, was meeting us at 8.50am at the hotel, so it was a fairly leisurely start to the day.  Had plenty of time to fry up some bacon for breakfast - yum!  (I've successfully managed to turn ManpanionTM onto the singular delights of the great british butty!!  Oh, how I miss decent bacon!!).  Anyway, after breakfast, we all troop down to the lobby on time and meet Martin who is, as you'd expect, terribly British, well-dressed and a bit posh.  We jump into a cab and head over to our first stop on the tour, the Household Cavalry Museum.  

Horseguards Parade

As with Kensington Palace, we were having a private pre-opening tour with one of the museum guides.  We arrived at Horseguards Parade and Martin spent a good 20 mins or so talking about the square and the surrounding buildings.  It was very interesting - except it was bloody freezing, so after about 10mins of standing about, I couldn't feel my feet anymore!  One fun fact - did you know that the reason that the roads leading along the Mall and to Buckingham Palace are red is not to signify that they are royal?  Its actually because the tarmac contains some special additive so that the horses hooves don't slip!  Cool, huh?  

Also cool - I had no idea that we were so close to Whitehall and one of the buildings that Martin pointed out was the back of Number 10 Downing Street!  I guess looking at the mass of barbed wire and heavily armed guards circling the perimeter should have given us an idea!  Anyway, about 9.15am, we are met by one of the staff and escorted inside the museum.  Its a fairly small museum, with the usual array of display cases stuffed with memorabilia and artefacts.  However, what's unique about this museum is that one of the interior walls has a large glazed partition in it, giving you a direct view into the stables where we were able to see the soldiers getting their horses and kit ready for the 10am guard change!  Also at the back of the museum and exclusively for us, before the doors opened, were tunics and hats and boots for us all to try on!  The Squids were great sports and got on in there, dressing up and looking really quite spiffy!

View into the stables from the back of the Museum

http://www.householdcavalrymuseum.co.uk/

Just before 10.30am, our guide led us out of the museum and round the corner to the front of the building for the Changing of the Horse Guards.   We stood and watched while the old guards who'd been standing on duty for 2hrs got changed out with new guards, who would then stand guard for another 2hr slot.  One of the funniest moments was when the guard in the picture below was marching out of his station and he bellowed at the top of his lungs "MAKE WAY!" to everyone in front of him, including poor Elly who jumped a mile!  We were all extremely shartled!  As well as the standing guards, the mounted guards also came out and were soon positioned in their guard boxes - they were enormous close up, but were happy for you to take pictures with them and also to pet the horses.  

Pre-shartled pose with the Shouty Officer

G.Squid rocks out the Lifeguards uniform!

The Squids

G.Squid moonwalks in the uniform boots!

ManpanionTM cracks up at my stylish interpretation
of the chinstrap.  Not my fault my head is bigger
than the hat!

ManpanionTM totally loses it! 

G.Squid rocks out the Bearskin!

Take one ManpanionTM, add a bearskin hat plus
a regimental tunic and.....

....et voila!!
Bruno Mars-level cool....

One of the most interesting exhibits in the museum -
a tiny hand-written copy of The Riot Act.  Click on the
picture and you should be able to read it.  And now you know
the origin of the phrase "To read someone the riot act!"

A Gatling gun from WW1

Beautiful ceremonial coat

So, after watching the changing of the horse guards and a final wander round the museum, it was about 11am and time to walk down the Mall and get into position to watch the changing of the guard at the Palace at 11.30am.  We were lined up along the Mall, so had a great view of the band and horses.  There were police on bikes riding up and down, shouting at the tourists to get off the road and stay on the pavement, so that the way would be clear for the guards.   But, other than that, the security felt very light.  I guess its very difficult to completely secure a parade like that that goes through open streets on a main road.   (and subsequent to our visit, this article appeared just a couple of days ago in the British press, so I guess the question of safety is on everyone's minds right now:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/05/security-fears-prompt-buckingham-palace-changing-of-guard-reforms)

Anyway, here's some more info about the ceremony:

Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace encompasses colourful spectacle and British pageantry. The ceremony lasts about 45 minutes and usually takes place daily at 11:30 from April until the end of July and on alternate days for the rest of the year, weather permitting. Please see the provisional schedule below.

The privilege of guarding the Sovereign traditionally belongs to the Household Troops, better known as ‘the Guards’, who have carried out this duty since 1660. For operational and other reasons, this privilege is periodically extended to other regiments of the British Army. The Guards consist of five infantry regiments - the Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards - and two regiments of the Household Cavalry – the Life Guards and Blues and Royals. Most of the Guards will have seen action overseas.

During the Changing the Guard ceremony, also known as ‘Guard Mounting’, one regiment takes over from another. The Queen’s Guard consists of the St James’s Palace and Buckingham Palace detachments. The New Guard, who during the course of the ceremony become The Queen’s Guard, march to Buckingham Palace from Wellington Barracks.

Watching the guards process down the Mall

The crowds outside Buckingham Palace gathered to watch the
changing of the guards

After watching the guards process into the palace, we relocated to another in-the-know spot, selected by Martin, where we got a great view of the guards marching from the Palace back to the barracks.  Again, it involved a fair amount of standing about which, in warmer weather, would have been more enjoyable, but in the cold, it felt as if it all dragged on a little too long.  But, it was certainly an interesting experience and, to quote Mumsie, "no-one does pomp and circumstance quite like the British" so I hope ManpanionTM and the Squids found it worthwhile too.

By the time we waved goodbye to Martin, it was 12.30pm - a lot later than I expected, so we had just enough time to jump in a cab back to the hotel and buy a ton of sandwiches from Pret for lunch.  We managed to thaw out for a bit before heading back out at 2pm, taking the Tube to Covent Garden (don't forget your Clam Card!) where ManpanionTM and the Squids were off to watch the Lion King!  I've already seen the Lion King (with Loopy and Thomas, many years ago!) so I left them to it and instead took the opportunity to go to M&S and buy pants!!  I also picked up some thermal undies for the boys as we were a bit worried about how cold it might get for the midnight celebrations tonight.   I also bought some lovely smelly stuff from Molton Brown (for when my fancy-pants new bathroom is finally ready at the end of Feb!), so it was a short but very productive shopping trip!

Weird footed bird!

London Eye - this time not shrouded in fog! A good sign
for tonight! Hurrah!

You meet some weirdos on the tube....

Here are some vids from the day - firstly, the changing of the guards at Horseguards Parade, followed by the processional down the Mall and then the returning of the guards to the barracks.  Make sure to turn the volume up and enjoy!!


Next up - the countdown to 2017!!!  Bring it on!!

PS - re the title of this blog - as we were walking along after the Parade, trying to find a cab, we came across a group of about 8-10 tourists all massed excitedly round this large tree, looking up and pointing.

It was a squirrel.

Rather puzzled by how a squirrel could have generated quite so much enthusiasm (surely its not possible that these people have never seen a squirrel before??), we decided that we must instead have stumbled on the fabled Royal Squirrel of Whitehall and what we were all actually witnessing was the changing of the Squirrel Guard.  I tell ya, it was totally nuts.