The Queen will celebrate her 89th birthday quietly at Windsor Castle on Tuesday.
She might be the oldest reigning monarch in British history, but she’s also been one of the healthiest and, if the weather is OK, she will spend the morning out riding in the Home Park on her favourite Fell pony, Carltonlima Emma.
The Queen adores a tranquil country birthday, unlike her mother whose birthdays were celebrated with an annual jamboree in London.
The Queen is not for such limelight and usually spends her birthday evening with a dinner party either at the castle or at the Bagshot Park home of her son Edward and his wife Sophie.
Guests nearly always include her cousin Margaret Rhodes and Prince Charles’s former nanny Mabel Anderson, who both live on the Windsor estate.
Today is a working day for Her Majesty. She and the Duke will drive to London this afternoon to attend a reception at Canada House to mark the involvement of Canadian regiments in the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. Next Saturday, there will be another Great War anniversary when the Royal couple will be the guests of honour at a service at Westminster Abbey to mark the centenary of Anzac Day.
Prince William is also due to be there, unless the new Royal baby officially expected to arrive that day keeps to schedule.
The Queen is looking forward to meeting her fifth great grandchild. William, Kate and Charles are all hoping for a girl. At the moment, Alice is the bookies’ favourite name, with one Edinburgh punter putting £2,000 on it at Ladbrokes last week.
William is particularly close to the woman he once called ‘Granny One’ and said at the time of his wedding: “My grandma is incredible. She is my grandmother first and then she’s the Queen. Words that come from her, I really appreciate. As I’ve gotten older, she’s become an even more important part of my life.”
In March, he even received some on-the-job training when he shadowed the Queen at an audience with two new ambassadors making their courtesy call on the monarch at Buckingham Palace.
While William will be on paternity leave bonding with baby number two, the Queen will be working through her list of summer engagements. After the small matter of asking her new PM to form a government, the Queen will be in the Duchy of Lancaster in late May, presenting new colours to the Royal Welsh at Cardiff’s Millennium stadium in June and enjoying her Scottish week, based at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in July.
A palace press officer told me, on Commonwealth Day last March, “there is literally no stopping her,” and both she and Prince Philip “are in fine fettle”.
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