Royal Watch
Rhiannon was treated to High Tea with The Four Great Aunts on her recent visit to Australia. They're still funny and fiesty and smell like roses. They gave their Great Niece the red carpet treatment, cooking up a feast of scones with jam and cream, fruit cake, sponge cake, Anzac biscuits and a genteel plate of sandwiches with the crusts cut off. There was even a distant cousin aged eight or nine who recited two bush ballads then belted out the National Anthem before one of The Aunts told him kindly, "Righto, that'll do."
After the floorshow the conversation inevitably turned to the Royal Family. The Aunts are all staunch monarchists, and when we told them two years ago we were off to the UK their first words were, "You MUST visit The Queen!". So naturally the opening question to Rhiannon at High Tea was, "Did you see her?"
"As a matter of fact, we did."
"Oh marvellous! Did you see her Christmas Message the other night?"
"Sadly no!"
"Oh you really missed out. Gee her hair looked beautiful! The way she turns it up at the ends like that! How does she do it? I wish mine would do that."
The Aunts all clucked in agreement.
"She's always had that beautiful hair. That silvery colour. Remember her hair on her Royal Visit to our town all those years ago?"
"Oh yes, she was wearing a purple frock. Gee I like her in purple."
"She looks marvellous in purple, I wish she'd wear it more often."
"When she came out of our church, I remember thinking, gee she has the most beautiful complexion."
"And she still does! I suppose she doesn't get much sun over there."
"Oh yes." The Aunts all patted their cheeks with their fingertips to emphasise the sheer beauty of the Royal epidermis.
"Rhiannon, I hear you also saw Our Princess Mary in Copenhagen?"
"Yes we did! And we saw her wedding dress in the palace too."
"Marvellous! And hasn't she done well over there in Denmark!"
More murmurs of agreement. "Oh yes, she's settled in so nicely!"
"Yes, yes."
"But what about Prince Harry? Gee they give him a hard time..."
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Aunts. Wonderful. Do you think they'd believe me in Australia if I claimed kinship with Your Princess Mary? I do have the same surname.
I'm not much of a monarchist, but my granny once had dinner with Princess Anne. Granny eats very, very slowly, and when she apologised for this, Princess Anne said, "That's quite all right, so does my mother."
Granny loves this anecdote and now trots it out every time she's apologising to _us_ for eating slowly and keeping us from our pudding (most Sundays).
I have great-aunts myself, also of a feistiness unwithered by age. One of them is even Australian.
Hee!! That story is positively hilarious! I wish my great-aunts were like that, but instead they're just passive-agressive and are always correcting each other about whether or not chargers go into the dishwasher. Then my great-grandmother will bust into some ridiculously gross story about "the old country", or just say, "We didn't have CHARGERS in RUSSIA, you little SHITS should be GRATEFUL." Anyway, your great-aunts totally made my day.
"The Aunts all patted their cheeks with their fingertips to emphasise the sheer beauty of the Royal epidermis."
Hehe, that made me giggle ;)
Shauny - those G.A's are now vivid in my head. I just got taken to lunch by my boyfriends mother who is like an ancient G.A - 83 years old. Somewhat less refined that your lot though...
I had those great-aunts! Was wondering where they'd got to? Every Friday we came home from school and there they were waiting with Mum and cinnamon bun and chocolate which we were never normally allowed to eat. If you rode your bike over to visit them in the summer you could sit in the cool dark kitchen and drink lemonade while they whipped up a batch of their world-famous-scones. You've got this conversation down marvellously!
Ohhh, they're darling, Shauny! I love the epidermis bit, too. The powder older ladies wear has such a beautiful smell.
I bet they've got beaut 30s names like Valma, Roma, Gloria, Gwenda, Beryl and Joan, too! (My grandmother and her sisters' names).
I'm wondering if the Great Aunts are from the MotherShip's side of the family? They sure sound like her :-)
momo - GREAT names! The Aunts are Barb, Marg, Jessie and Fran!
rosalie - very perceptive! correct! :)