ninme

Yesterday we had our 60 funfacts (doesn’t 51 make you all melty?), then last night was released this picture from the dinner Charles threw them:

Today we’ve had the official service (I wonder what Dame Judi makes of always doing readings at these things):

Times Online - The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh attend diamond anniversary service

The Archbishop told the congregation today: “Every marriage is a public event, but some couples have to live more than others in the full light of publicity.

“We are probably more aware than ever these days of the pressures this brings. But it also means that we can give special thanks for the very public character of the witness and the sign offered to us by this marriage, and what it has meant to nation and Commonwealth over the decades.

“And part of what it has meant has had to do precisely with the sense of unqualified commitment that has been so characteristic of every aspect of this reign: the faithful and creative personal partnership at the centre of everything else has been a sign of creative faithfulness to a task, a vocation, the creative faithfulness that secures the trust, love and prayerful support of millions.”

Dr Williams also told the congregation: “Today we celebrate not only a marriage but the relationship between monarch and people of which also that marriage is a symbol: a relationship in which we see what levels of commitment are possible for someone upheld by a clear sense of God’s calling and enabling, and the corresponding vision of the worthwhileness of this national and international family that is the Commonwealth, which has been the recipient of such unswerving service.

“So before we complain too loudly about a world of disposable relationships and short-term policies, a world of fracturing and insecure international bonds and the decline of trust, we should remember today that we have cause for thanksgiving - thanksgiving that God has made human beings capable, against all the odds, of reflecting his own completely costly and self-giving commitment to his world; that the gift of marriage makes this capacity visible in our world; and that, in the lives of the couple with whom today we join in celebration, that bracing, renewing and hopeful vision of faithful generosity has been for 60 years set so clearly before our eyes.

“May it be so for many more years.”

And tomorrow they’re off to Malta.