Royal Tour 2014

It’s not every day I get to hobnob with members of Britain’s Royal Family. And, honestly, today was no different. Unless you call standing in the freezing cold at Halifax’s Grand Parade trying to shoot photos of the Royal Couple through a sea of arms holding up photography-enabled mobile phones as though they were lighters at a Neil Diamond concert ‘hobnobbing.

That said, the foggy feting of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall as they kicked off their $720,000 taxpayer-funded Canadian tour went reasonably well, despite the emcee issuing an erroneous welcome to the late, great Princess of Wales – awkward! – and Premier Stephen McNeil adding an extra T to the end of the word ‘cenotaph’ during his address.

Oh, and I stand by my earlier tweet insisting that the band played an instrumental version of “Drunken Sailor” by the Irish Rovers.

But I digress.

When all was said and done, Charles, 65, had delivered what I considered to be a gracious speech (against the backdrop of TD Canada Trust’s “OPEN DURING RENOVATIONS” banner), while Camilla, who turns 67 later this summer, had earned herself a few new fans by incorporating the Nova Scotia tartan into her morning ensemble.

The true belle of the proverbial ball, however, was Nazanin Afshin-Jam, the wife of Federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay. My photos of the Iranian human rights activist – she’s also a former Miss Canada World – and other members of today’s pomp-and-circumstance brigade, can be found by clicking here.