windsor castle: a royal year

{This is a screen shot I took while I was watching the first DVD, so I could remember exactly what the East Terrace looks like. The brown rectangles are rose beds that bloom in the summer.  Prince Philip designed the current layout of this terrace, which is behind the Castle's private apartments.}

For months and months now, I have been charging ahead full force with my novel, and using every single bit of creative energy and free time I have trying to get it written.  I am a woman both determined and obsessed.  There are days when I feel like I am eating, sleeping, and breathing the British royal family . . . mostly my fictional one, but also the real one, because I want the details to ring true.

If you have any interest in such things, I'd recommend to you a documentary entitled Windsor Castle: A Royal Year.  It's the first-ever behind-the-scenes look at Windsor Castle, and is full of such very interesting details.  I rented both discs from Netflix.

Even if you are not enamored with the Windsors themselves, the details of castle life are quite fascinating. Did you know there are two complete dairy farms in the Home Park? (The Home Park is the Castle's "backyard."  It's a pretty big backyard.)

I also found out that St. George's Chapel at Windsor is what's known as a "royal peculiar" . . . a Church of England church not within a diocese.  Its only "boss" is the Queen. (And God, one would hope.)

The Royal Household comprises an entire community at Windsor, and there are all kinds of facilities for them especially, including the York Club, which is the hub of the staff's social life, and a bowling club, and a cricket field . . .  it was all so interesting to me.

I actually preferred the bonus disc to the official disc, because it is unscripted and more relaxed, and includes Camilla and Charles' wedding (it's fun to see Princes William and Harry throwing confetti on their dad's head and looking so happy), and some "cut" footage of Prince Philip's tour of Windsor Great Park.  

Philip has been the ranger of the Park for over fifty years, and knows it better than anyone ever has. And I found him to be quite likable. The older I get, the more determined I am not to accept the media's version of a person without doing some of my own investigation, if possible.  People are rarely the cartoons they are portrayed to be in the news.