Woman and her Sphere

Yesterday was surreal – as I found myself at Buckingham Palace to receive an OBE for ‘Services to Education – in particular for promoting knowledge of the women’s suffrage movement’. This was an event so far removed from my expectations from life that to mention ‘wildest dreams’ would be to give it too firm a reality.

However it was a most interesting occasion – wonderfully orchestrated – ceremonial and yet convivial – and I was delighted that the history of the women’s movement should be honoured in this way..

After bidding farewell to the gilt, crystal, and red velvet, to the Beefeaters, the Gurkhas, and the Guards, to numerous paintings of the royal family through the ages, and, noted in passing, to a Jan Steen, a de Hooch, and a Vermeer, I and my family party of 12 enjoyed a merry, afternoon-long lunch.