Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?

10 days to Boxing Day. Most of my life the next day or even the next hour is not quite as I pictured it. This prompt so perfectly fitted my day yesterday I felt compelled to answer.

This shadowy image reflected in a glitterball bauble should not have been standing here. Nana , Nona and our Monday Small Person had planned to be at a festive book reading event. An hour before this we were half an hour early and were enjoying good coffee and weak sunshine. In fact we were one whole week and a half hour early. What to do with that suddenly available two hours of time. The answer was to go Christmas Shopping. Not a concept that a 2 year old fully grasps. She did fine and we were surprisingly effective. We rewarded ourselves for unplanned shopping with unplanned  Christmas film watching. Not the day I pictured at all.

And so to Q on the 26 Days to Boxing Day. Q is for Queen.

I am not particularly a Monarchist but I feel the cranky, eccentric, British system of a Royal Family works better than many Democracies with a Presidential figurehead. Our last Monarch was Queen Elizabeth II. Her reign of nearly 71 years was the longest in history.  And there is a link to the festive season.

Postboxes , which most of us will use to send Christmas Cards.

British Post boxes are sturdy things and are marked with the reigning Monarchs Cypher at the time they were installed. Post Boxes are very long lasting.

Queen Victoria reigned for 63 years. So these two long lived womens’ Cyphers mark almost 80% of all the post boxes in Britain, six Kings , King Edward II, Edward III George V, George VI, George VII, and Charles III, get the remaining 20%.

King Charles seems to only have 1 post box installed in July 2024.

So for the forseeable future Christmas Cards in Britain will be posted in Queenly Cyphered post boxes. Random fact, unimportant but interesting.