Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa.

**Macman** · 30th June 10, 03:41 PM

Originally Posted by Canuck of NI

I should have known, I should have known, I should have known not to try and use a throwaway term referring to royalty on this website. But I did think I was safe in that single instance! I stand corrected, but with the excuse that almost every Canadian would do the same.

Hey, don't feel too bad. I knew the HM thing, but Sandy taught me something I didn't know about the Dominion on another thread

. That's why I love XMTS - I learn a lot!

**Lallans** · 2nd July 10, 06:19 AM

Well I saw the Queen on the Hill yesterday but we didn't meet personally so the question of how to address her didn't come up.

The crowds were stupendous, 400,000 by some accounts, answering a question I had about how many people on July 1 would be too many (100,000 would be more typical). By lurking with the huge crowds on the exit route I got to see Her Majesty within about 1.5 metres as she went by in the usual armoured limo with the three inch glass, and once safely past me in my UK

, she even rolled down her window to give her trademark wave to everyone.

The local media coverage of Her Majesty's presence makes me suspect the political fix is in aganst the monarchy, since TV news had the crowd at a mere 75,000 and her speech from the ceremony was given perhaps 10 seconds of air time. For sure, from the conversations all around us, the threefold increase in crowd numbers involved people wanting to see Her Majesty on perhaps her last visit to Canada (but given her mother's record in old age, I suspect most people are underestimating HRM. I hope so anyway.)

**piperdbh** · 2nd July 10, 07:23 AM

So she didn't come to your house for BBQ, either. How did the tree planting go?

**Lallans** · 2nd July 10, 07:45 AM

Originally Posted by piperdbh

So she didn't come to your house for BBQ, either. How did the tree planting go?

The tree planting was comparatively well covered. Her Majesty has now planted a total of I think 5 in the ceremonial area (the grounds of the Govenor General's Residence), and holds the record. The latest tree was quite a large one and already firmly in the ground, leading to (I'm sorry to say) some snarky media comments (they apparently expected HRM to operate the hole digger and then the front loader)- but the Queen showed herself to be a woman of strength and vigour by wielding a number of shovels-full of topsoil better than most of the sickly reporters present would even know how. I don't know how the little kid made out but hopefully he got something to eat.