A Tour of the Castle

Today we walked into town with Bridget and she took us on the tour of Windsor Castle.
The tour is a self guided audio tour. It walks you through the court yard outside the castle and then proceeds into the castle through the public rooms. It takes about 2 hours and is really great. Interesting information and fun to see a video of the Queen holding receptions in the very rooms you are standing in. After 2 hours in the castle we decided to finish the tour another day. Having bought our tickets today we got a pass to return to the castle tour any time within the next 12 months. We will take them up on that if we can remember where we put our tickets.
After our tour we stopped at a little cafe down the street from the castle and had a nice lunch out in the sun. As we were finishing lunch we realized we could head down the street and see the Queen as she left the castle to drive to Ascot for the afternoon races. The cars you see in the second picture are the Queen and others driving toward Ascot down the LONG ROAD. This road runs from the castle towards Ascot with a HUGE statue of (can't remember who) at the other end. The road is indeed LONG. We are told that on nice days the Queen will drive to a point near the end of the Long Road and get out of her car and into her horse drawn carriage to enter the races in style. People line the Long Road to catch glimpse of the Queen and to see what color hat she is wearing today. We did arrive in time to join the crowd and saw that the Queen was dressed in RED today.She actually looked quite good for a woman her age but if I lived in a castle as large and opulent as Windsor I suppose I would look pretty good also. Instead, I am looking as haggard as most of the women waking about town. All this walking may be healthy but let me tell you it is KILLING me. My toes have blisters and my legs ache. I am ready for bed by 21:00, (that's 9PM for all you Yanks) and am popping Advil like they were M&M's. I am being passed on the street by old women and crippled dogs. It is getting quite embarrassing. Hopefully the chiropractor that I started seeing today will help me with the leg and back pain and if I can stay away from the pubs and pastys I just might go home healthier than when we arrived.
FYI . . . I have tried ordering salads for lunch and what I get is a plate full of something that looks like they just pulled it up from next to the road. There are green things in the salad that I have NEVER seen before in my life. They taste rather like grass so I am thinking that because salad is NOT a big seller here in England so they just throw anything green into a bowl when you order salad. I expect to start "mooing" any day now. Then to top it off there is NO dressing of any kind on the green stuff. They offer you "sauces" which turns out to be ketchup, mustard or mayonnaise. If you order "chips", (remember they are french fries) you get vinegar to put on the chips.