Accession Day

I took a half-day holiday yesterday to take some pictures at an event I've never seen before.

Yesterday was Accession day - the 54th anniversary of The Queen becoming Queen. In honour of this, gun salutes are fired from the national capitals and for London it happens twice - once in Hyde Park and then again at The Tower an hour later. You can probably tell from the picture that I popped along to The Tower to see the Honourable Artillery Company at work.

Seeing the Beefeaters wandering around with bright yellow earplugs is quite odd, but you can understand why they're needed if you're there. They fire a 62 gun salute at The Tower - the regular 21 gun royal salute, with a further 20 rounds in honour of The Tower being a "Royal Palace and Fortress" then another 21 for the City of London. The maths can get more complicated if there are multiple anniversaries; at The Tower they will fire 124 rounds if The Duke of Edinburgh's Birthday (June 10th) falls on the same day as the Queen's Official Birthday!

The rounds are so loud as they're fired, if you're as close as they let me stand, that you can feel the compression wave in your lungs. I didn't feel sick while walking back over Tower Bridge afterwards, but just a bit strange.

Sadly I didn't manage to capture any of the fantastic smoke rings caused by some rounds. I need a new camera...