Shock news...

I was back at work and doing my short shift today, but we had one member of staff not able to come in, so it was a bit hectic! I covered the lunch breaks, and in the afternoon we heard on the grapevine that the Queen was ill and that the senior members of the Royal family were on their way to Balmoral... was this the end of an era?

I was very glad to get out at 2pm as we'd had various niggles with the computers all morning! I'd arranged to pick up my Mum at 3pm and take her to do some shopping, and we went to Tesco where she bought some clothes, toiletries and treats. I was going to take her home for tea and cake but we stayed at Costa instead, something I was very glad about when I heard there'd been a problem on the A14 and the traffic was horrendous!

I dropped her off and saw the line of vehicles stretching from the A14 slip road back to Broughton. Poor people! And all because of a broken down lorry! Back home we watched the news and I was just sitting relaxing with a drink and Help! We Bought a Village when Sophie rushed into the living room to say that our Queen had died. I was shell-shocked, to be honest, as I didn't expect her to die so quickly! She'd only seen our new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, the other day, and although she did look frail she was up and about.

Predictably, all five television channels were covering the news, something I knew would go on for the foreseeable future. When Prince Phillip died it was just blanket coverage on the BBC channels all evening, which was a bit ridiculous. 

We were all shocked and it felt very strange to hear Charles now called King Charles III. I do wonder how long he will reign seeing as he's already in his 70s? I am a bit ambivalent about our Royal family... Some of them do a fantastic job and I admired the Queen and Prince Phillip for their incredible work ethic, but I just know there will be an outpouring of sentimentality for the next few weeks, which I will try to avoid!