This Day, At Last

This is the day I have been waiting months, maybe years for. It could be called, “The day I take my mind totally off all idiot politicians day.” Or it could be called, “My day with hundreds of people thirty or more years older than me.” But to be as descriptive and correct as possible it should be called, “Opening day of a Downton Abbey.”

Like so many people I know, I have been a lover of Downton Abbey from the very first showing on Masterpiece theatre on TV nine years ago. I waited patiently every week to see the next installment and then when the typically short British Season would come to an end in 9 weeks I would pine away for Mathew Crawley for another year and a half awaiting the next season.

Then it was over. Masterpiece showed reruns and I watched them. Streaming services replayed all the seasons and I binged them last summer, watching every episode, all 52, in two weeks. I was so distraught after that binge that I watched all the documentaries about Downton. The waiting for the long promised movie was going to kill me.

My young friends Mary Lloyd and Christy and I canceled all activities for today so we could go to the show with the advance tickets we had bought. We were going to see it at Silverspot where you get to reserve your seats. The early 1:00PM show was our first chance.

I got to the theatre first. I thought I had come to an AARP convention by mistake. I was practically the only person without a walking aid. The wheel chair bound patrons rolling abreast almost took out two women with walkers. Thankfully a man with a cane used his instrument to save the day and prevented the rolling chairs from bowling others over.

When my young group assembled we went up to the ticket man to check in. After he scanned Mary Lloyd’s bar code on her phone he told us, “Your seats are kind of far up the theatre. You can take the elevator if you need.” We laughed and said we could handle the stairs. We think he didn’t bother to actually look up and see that we didn’t have walkers.

I am not going to spoil the movie for you, but the day is everything I had been waiting for. The best part is that I think there are plenty of things set up for a sequel. Julian Fellows, the writer and creator, is probably wondering why he didn’t do this movie thing years ago. I hope he makes tons of money as well as all the cast mates so they want to do it again. I am certain that there will still be politicians I want to ignore in two years.