On Monday we got a new Prime Minister and just a few days later we lost a Queen.
The death of Queen Elizabeth appeared to be sudden but her withdrawal from public life has taken place over a few months, suggesting that she was in failing health.
It was typical of her that she still found the strength and sense of duty from somewhere to meet the outgoing and the incoming PM.
I have a couple of stories of the Queen to share with you. I may have written about these before. One of my functions when I was a press officer with Norfolk Police was to be at a number of Royal Visits. This meant looking after and managing the Media so that they were given proper access to allow them to take photographs etc without getting in the way.
This meant quite a bit of planning before the event. It also meant following the Royals around. There are three visits among the many that stand out in my memory. The first was when I was on the committee of the Norfolk branch of the Prince's Trust and I followed Prince Charles (as he was then) around a holiday camp in Norfolk. He didn't seem very impressed with the buildings - but that's a story for another day.
My two main memories of visits to the county by the Queen were at King's Lynn and Wymondham.
At King's Lynn, Her Majesty was opening a new part of the Lynn Sports complex. Everything was planned down to the smallest degree. There were meetings beforehand and everyone knew their part. My job was, as I have said, to facilitate the Media. As such I was known to the Queen's security staff and so was free to move wherever I wanted whilst still working within set rules.
I was told that at one point the Queen would move off to her left and at that point I should move to the right. To this day I claim the Queen went the opposite way. She moved to her right. I moved to the right and suddenly I was about a foot from her. It's one of those split-second things that are frozen in time. I can't remember whether I apologised but I did make a quick exit. At least I didn't walk into her which would have been terrible.
The second Royal occasion I remember quite vividly is when the Queen and the Duke officially opened the new police headquarters in Wymondham. Previously we had been a bit on the side of county hall in Norwich but now we had a purpose-built and sparklingly new building just two miles from my home - which made commuting to work a doddle.
Everything was newly painted for the visit. The Queen must have moved round the country with the smell of new paint following her everywhere. Cars were banned from the car park for the day. I can't remember whether somebody gave me a lift to work, whether I walked or caught the bus. But there were no cars. So the Queen walked across an entirely empty car park that was usually full to overflowing. She must have found this odd.
The thing I remember is how gracious she was and how interested she was in the new headquarters. But above all she was interested in the police dogs and the people. She seemed to have very little interest in the descriptions of the police bikes and cars. She was definitely a people person.
There was an amusing aside to that visit. A day before we had sniffer dogs in all the offices, highly trained to seek out explosives etc. In reality they were loveable bundles of fluff who were taught to search premises as a game.
One entered our office, had a good run around, had a good sniff and went straight for my bag which was on the floor. He came out with a highly dangerous package - the cheese sandwiches that were destined for my lunch. He then set about ripping open the bag and eating one of them. I've always said that cheese can be dangerous. I believe I ate in the canteen that day.