the story...

I know many of you have already seen my album on facebook from last Saturday, but I figured it was definitely something that deserved a blog post. So, here you go!

I don't know about you, but I often find myself accidentally opening emails in my gmail account when I meant to click on something else, or just accidentally clicked...But this was the first time that accidentally opening an email turned into quite a big deal! After closing the email I'd just opened on accident - it was one from the photography society here at Aberdeen - I realized that my eyes had just seen the words "HRH Prince Charles". So I hastily re-opened it and read on. As I read I realized that this email was calling the mailing list of the photography society to go to an event and get some pictures for the student newspaper. They didn't explain the event, they simply said that HRH Prince Charles would be at Castlegate (a square at one end of the high street in Aberdeen) and that we should be there by 10:30am on Saturday. 

So, Saturday morning I grabbed my camera, and caught the bus and headed out! When I got there it was past 10:30, so I was a little worried that I was late, but people were still lingering (there was quite a crowd) and the bagpipers were still playing. 

So I waited. And around 11am a couple of cars came rolling up and out of one walked Prince Charles with a small group of the others who would be speaking. 

The reason for the gathering was to unveil and dedicate a new statue in Castlegate (you can see the statue in the first picture, one of these days I'll go back and grab a better picture of it). It's a statue in honour of The Gordon Highlanders, an army infantry regiment, over which Prince Charles had been made Colonel in Chief. Back in 1994 they were amalgamated with other regiments to become simply: "The Highlanders". And in that same year they had their final parade in the park through which I walk to school. But all that to say, it was rather surreal seeing Prince Charles. Below I've added pictures from the day as well as one of the videos I got of one of his speeches. Enjoy!

 After the speech he made his way around the various special guests and then, past those of us standing along his route to his next destination:

As everyone has asked: No, I didn't get to shake his hand, though I was nearly close enough to touch him had I tried...but I was too busy taking pictures and listening to him joke with the old ladies in front of me. All-in-all, a very productive Saturday morning!