Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa.

[Lallans]

HRH arrived here yesterday and will be present for Canada Day, tomorrow, giving us the unusual pleasure of a three day visit. Some of the items that have come out in the local news are interesting and/or cute: one is that Canada appoints a Queen's Piper for each visit and this time the piper is a young woman who has written a new pipe tune called "The Maple Crown," which she will play tomorrow and also present Her Majesty with the original manuscript. The other item that caught my attention was about a very young boy in the age 4-5 range who had written inviting the Queen to a barbeque at his house. The Queen replied that she was unable to make it, but later invited the boy to a tree planting ceremony, where he should be as I type this.

[The BBQ thing brought to mind a particular dread of mine when I was the boy's age, which was that the Queen would come to our house for a visit, meaning that I would have to dress up in scratchy clothing and behave myself for far too long. Clearly the Ottawa boy is no more realistic than I was, but a lot better socialized.]

[BoldHighlander]

The other item that caught my attention was one about a very young boy in the age 4-5 range who had written inviting the Queen to a barbeque at his house. The Queen replied that she was unable to make it, but later invited the boy to a tree planting ceremony, where he should be as I type this.

That is just to precious!
And what a memory he'll have to cherish.

[JSFMACLJR]

HRH arrived here yesterday and will be present for Canada Day, tomorrow, giving us the unusual pleasure of a three day visit..]

The Queen came , too, so HRH won't be alone and out on the prowl!

( The Queen is "Her Majesty"--HM; Princes of the Blood Royal, and others, are Royal Highnesses. The Duke of Edinburgh, then, is HRH etc. )

[Lallans]

The Queen came , too, so HRH won't be alone and out on the prowl!

( The Queen is "Her Majesty"--HM; Princes of the Blood Royal, and others, are Royal Highnesses. The Duke of Edinburgh, then, is HRH etc. )

I should have known, I should have known, I should have known not to try and use a throwaway term referring to royalty on this website. But I did think I was safe in that single instance! I stand corrected, but with the excuse that almost every Canadian would do the same.

EDIT: Hey waitaminnit! She's the Queen Of Canada in this country- are you sure you're not imposing British usage on us? Do Brits invite her to BBQs?

[toadinakilt]

I should have known, I should have known, I should have known not to try and use a throwaway term referring to royalty on this website. But I did think I was safe in that single instance! I stand corrected, but with the excuse that almost every Canadian would do the same.

EDIT: Hey waitaminnit! She's the Queen Of Canada in this country- are you sure you're not imposing British usage on us? Do Brits invite her to BBQs?

Do Brits even KNOW about BBQ?

[ronstew]

Yes, it is the Canadian usage. Hence, Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Ottawa.

Yours, aye,

[ThistleDown]

Canadians can actually get away with referring to her as Your Grace when talking with her in person; or Your Majesty, but never Your Highness. In an informal setting Ma'am (pronounced a bit like Muum) is acceptable, too.

[Macman]

I should have known, I should have known, I should have known not to try and use a throwaway term referring to royalty on this website. But I did think I was safe in that single instance! I stand corrected, but with the excuse that almost every Canadian would do the same.

Hey, don't feel too bad. I knew the HM thing, but Sandy taught me something I didn't know about the Dominion on another thread. That's why I love XMTS - I learn a lot!

[Lallans]

Well I saw the Queen on the Hill yesterday but we didn't meet personally so the question of how to address her didn't come up. The crowds were stupendous, 400,000 by some accounts, answering a question I had about how many people on July 1 would be too many (100,000 would be more typical). By lurking with the huge crowds on the exit route I got to see Her Majesty within about 1.5 metres as she went by in the usual armoured limo with the three inch glass, and once safely past me in my UK , she even rolled down her window to give her trademark wave to everyone.

The local media coverage of Her Majesty's presence makes me suspect the political fix is in aganst the monarchy, since TV news had the crowd at a mere 75,000 and her speech from the ceremony was given perhaps 10 seconds of air time. For sure, from the conversations all around us, the threefold increase in crowd numbers involved people wanting to see Her Majesty on perhaps her last visit to Canada (but given her mother's record in old age, I suspect most people are underestimating HRM. I hope so anyway.)

[piperdbh]

So she didn't come to your house for BBQ, either. How did the tree planting go?