Rather like Christmas, the preparations had gone on for months but the actual St George's Day came and went in a blur yesterday.
And after a fortnight of sunshine and blue skies, it was sod's law it tipped it down for most of the day.
Still, that didn't deter the audience that turned out for the Son et Lumiere in St John's Gardens last night.
They sat in plastic raincoats to enjoy what by all accounts was a stunning sound and light show beamed on to the back of St George's Hall.
I say by all accounts because I was rather feeble and cried off, ending up asleep on my sofa at 9pm after a couple of glasses of wine and a day trailing Prince Charles around Liverpool.
I'm looking forward to seeing it later in the week.
The royal visit itself seemed to go pretty well, if uneventfully.
The Prince rolled up by Royal train to Lime Street which had been given as much of a spring clean as you can give a building site. Welcome to the city of cranes and barriers!
We did wonder if he may come by Pendolino and there would be a slight delay while they extricated the heir to the throne from the train toilet, but he sensibly brought his own engine and carriages.
The rain held off just long enough for him to trot across the road to St George's Hall where there was a line up of medals and suits waiting for him.
There was a bit of a giggle going on between HRH and Warren Bradley, apparently about the council leader's non-council activities.
Mr B told me the Prince had asked if he was still doing his 'second' job.
For the few who don't know, Warren is a serving Merseyside firefighter.
Apparently the heir to the throne inquired when he had last been on duty, and Warren said: "nine o'clock this morning".
Still, it makes a change to firefighting the council's budget.
The three-hour royal visit to St George's Hall included Prince Charles being given an honorary fellowship from JMU, making an impassioned speech about how what the world needs is a bit more love and understanding, and going on a tour of the building.
This was the most fruitful part of the morning for the photographers trailing behind him, as you will see from today's Echo as he peered into a prison slops pot which had its own distinct 'smell'.
A case of the Prince and the Pooper maybe?
He also chatted to Echo readers Peter and Jackie Fleming and apparently was a bit bemused when they were introduced to him as winners of our competition to meet him!
I missed all this as I was stationed at Toxteth Town Hall for the community part of the day's visit.
His two-hour visit to Toxteth was preceeded by a private stop at the Florence Institute, one of the landmarks on the Echo's Stop the Rot campaign, where he was quite shocked to learn from Florrie campaigner Tom Calderbank that his own mum the Queen owned this ramshackle ruin.
Fingers crossed he will go home and now do something about its sorry state.
I also got my own shock when one of the Prince's press officers came up to me half way through the visit and pointed out that we knew each other as we had been at university together. It was only then I actually recognised him (and we were in all the same classes too).
Still, it's at least 15 years since I last saw him and a lot of wine and water has gone under the bridge since then.
Anyway, back at Toxteth Town Hall, a gaggle of schoolchildren stood in the rain to meet the royal visitor and there was some cheeky banter by the level of laughter we could all hear as we waited inside.
The media's job on these occasions is to trail round behind the royal visitor as he meets various people and organisations, secretly hoping he or someone else will say something amazing, shocking or newsworthy.
The Prince was hosted by the marvellous Denise Devine who is currently about six months pregnant, and whose feet were red raw by the end.
She'd already advised the nervous to 'call him Your Royal Highness the first time, then Sir - unless he says 'call me Charles'. Well, you never know!'.
Among those he met was the aptly-named George Cross, a wonderful 97-year-old whose home in the Welsh Streets is going to be demolished.
George has lived there 71 years and isn't too happy about it, but yesterday he had a big grin on his face as he chatted to Charles about his artwork which he only took up at the age of 67.
He's got a big exhibition at St George's Hall in June and I'd urge everyone to go and see it.
The visit finished with a Mummers play about St George and his enemies Sir Bully, Sir Liar and Sir Evil, performed by children from St Margaret of Antioch school which was very entertaining and raised whoops and cheers from the audience.
Then it was back out into that pesky rain and more cheers from the slightly damp faithful who were still outside.
