The cobbles are not yet dry, even though it has not rained for two days. Cold and grey all around me with the streets practically deserted and the ice on the surface of the Thames not fully melted yet. It is dull, bleak and full of bad odours in the street outside the palace. If it were not absolutely necessary to be here now, I wish I could be at Hampton Court or even Windsor. No bad odours there or clanking carts rumbling past together with the constant clip, clop of hooves on the cobbles. Out there, in the country, the first green shoots of spring are just appearing on bush, tree and hedgerow. The air is fresh and, if the rain holds off for more than five hours, the sky is blue.
Today is not the day for gloom or melancholy, however. At least the weather is clement, and it is brightly l
