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Summer Days in London

© Stuart Buchanan MacWatt

London's Summer Season highlights have passed into the Society pages of Vogue and Tatler, and London now becomes a vast honeypot for the hordes of summer tourists from all over the world, bringing big bucks to the economy of what has been described as "The Coolest City in the world.

It has been a lively Season for Londoners and its visitors.

In May we enjoyed the Royal Horticultural Society's annual floral extravaganza, the Chelsea Flower Show.

On 4th June, the Queen's Official Birthday, we celebrated the Trooping of the Queen's Colour on "Horse Guards Parade'. With a backdrop of the splendid Whitehall Palace Guards edifice built in 1745, and facing the beautiful St.James Park, this colorful annual event brings Londoners out for a historic day of military pageantry.

Lovers of military pageantry will be flocking to London's Earl's Court between 20th July and 2nd August to watch the last and most spectacular of the Royal Tournaments, ending 120 years of London Military Tattoos. The massed bands of the Army, Navy and Air Force, together with the Highland Regimental Pipers will bring a lump to the throat of many a Service Veteran.

Summer visitors will enjoy the walk from the Parade Ground across St James Park to Buckingham Palace. This is the oldest and most beautiful of all London's Royal Parks, with lakes teeming with waterbirds, including descendants of a pair of Pelicans originally owned by King Charles II, and the very beautiful and graceful swans in the startling and unusual plumage of midnight black.

Approaching Buckingham Palace from St.James Park is the only way to see the true grandeur of the building in its proper perspective. Use the occasion to go inside and see some of the State Rooms which are open to the public between 9.30 am. and 5.30 pm. in August and September. If you get to the Palace's wrought iron gates by 11.30 am during August, you can join the throng of visiters to watch the Changing of the Guard.

Watch your belongings as well as the Guard, however. Among the throng are some of London's most talented pickpockets and purse picking adepts. They take an artist's pride in their nefarious abilities of surreptitious abstraction that can leave you without your wallet containing cash, credit cards, and passport. And you may be none the wiser until you go your pocket or purse to pay off the taxi driver who drove you back from Buckingham Palace to your hotel in Bayswater. Yes, I speak from bitter personal experience! And while American Express may replace your card just like they do in their TV commercial, they cannot replace your lost cash or passport. This can be the ruin of a vacation.

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