This week saw Queen Elizabeth return to her usual busy schedule, after a low-key and difficult year of self-isolation. Though she spent seven days in Scotland, tasting Irn Bru with Prince William and tasting honey with Princess Anne, she took a flight home to Windsor so she could attend one of her favorite events of the year, the Royal Windsor Horse Show.
On Thursday afternoon, the queen drove herself to the event in her Range Rover, wearing the same turquoise jacket she wore to an event at the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute earlier in the day and a pair of trendy oval sunglasses. She was able to reunite with Sophie, Countess of Wessex, and her longtime friend, Penelope Knatchbull. On Friday, she turned up again in a much more casual outfit: a white oxford, navy vest, grey plaid skirt, and a swipe of red lipstick. Photographers at the event captured a few photographs of her in the middle of the kind of “big laugh” that friends say she loves to show off in private.
Last year the horse show was canceled due to the pandemic, but the queen has attended most years and even competed herself when she was younger. The queen’s granddaughter, Lady Louise Windsor, is carrying on the family tradition—and following in the footsteps of the late Prince Philip—by competing as a carriage driver. Last week, she was spotted practicing on the grounds of Windsor Castle in a carriage that belonged to Philip. (In April, a source told Hello that Louise and Philip had bonded over the sport, and she was in line to inherit his carriages and fell ponies.) “She is naturally very shy, but wants to do something to make everybody proud, including the Queen who will be watching,” a royal insider told the Daily Mail.
The queen was one of the many members of the royal family who did not attend a Thursday ceremony dedicating a statue to Princess Diana on the Kensington Palace grounds with William and Prince Harry. According to Us Weekly, the decision was made to limit royal attendance far in advance and the queen and Kate Middleton watched from afar.
“The royals wanted to keep it very personal and not have many family members in attendance since that would be a takeaway from the special moment,” a source told the magazine. “This wasn’t a last-minute decision; it was decided on a few weeks ago that the other royals wouldn’t be attending. Meghan [Markle] just had her baby, Kate watched from afar with the kids, and same with the Queen. Charles had said he didn’t want to be a distraction.”
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