For me personally King’s Day wasn’t that much different from other years. Most of the time I am not with the royals in a city, but sit at home waiting for photos and news to come in. There is always a lot to do. I was not quite sure what to expect this year. Only days beforehand it was announced that King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, who of course, like everybody, stayed at home, would invite a camera in their home, Palace Huis ten Bosch in Den Haag.
The alternative program sounded pretty nice, but I was a tiny bit disappointed. Not by the royals by the way – although it was a bit confusing that you had to watch the royals on tv, on a special platform and on social media. It appears I didn’t miss a lot, but listening to the tv and watch online is a little bit too much asked to my opinion. And it turned out that, while I waited for the tv-channel NPO1 to continue, the King in the afternoon appeared on the tv-channel NPO3 in a children’s program. The platform online was constantly repeating stuff too, which was pretty boring. I had hoped that there would be a bit more royal on tv, and I was not the only one I heard. They could have broadcasted royal documentaries all day, especially as there is not too much to celebrate at the moment and most activities were cancelled of course.
- The national anthem and the speech of the King
- The highlights of six King’s Days
- King’s Day: a road trip through the Dutch provinces
The royals however did their utmost best. A speech by the King, surrounded by his family, at the start of the day. And at the end of the afternoon there was the national toast, which was rather nice with the royals standing in their garden. We even saw other family members appearing on Zoom to congratulate the birthday boy.
Anyway I bought myself some cake at the bakery on the other side of the street, did sing the Wilhelmus quietly in my garden at 10am. I thought there was nobody there, until I noticed the neighbour sitting in her garden … oh well, I did manage not too sing too loud and it didn’t sound too bad either I think. There was a lot more work than I had expected, but it kept me busy anyway and I had enough time to watch everything either online or on my tv. I ended the day with a walk into the city centre where the tower of the Martini Church wasn’t only illuminated in red-white-blue, but also in orange.
The Martini Tower looks nice with some orange.
You seem to have had a few sweet tweets around King’s Day. Maybe next year the celebrations will be exciting again. The virus may however, last a long time.