There’s some good news/bad news with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Well, maybe “bad news” is too harsh. Maybe it’s just “I’m-not-sure-about-this news.” The good news is that William and Kate probably/maybe aren’t going to Mustique this month. At least from what I can tell of their confirmed schedule, I’m not sure when they would be able to fit it in. Last week, Kate confirmed an appearance for November 17th on behalf of The Fostering Network in London. Then William and Kate will be doing joint appearances in Wales on the 20th. When will they ever make it to Mustique?! It’s been forever since they had a proper holiday! *hair toss* I guess it’s possible that they’ll sneak away after the 20th, when America is celebrating Thanksgiving and few people are paying attention.
And now for the I’m-not-sure-about-this news… the Cambridges are headed to India next year. Last week, the Queen welcomed India’s prime minister Narenda Modi to Buckingham Palace, and after the visit, BP and Kensington Palace announced that at the Queen’s request, the Cambridges would be visiting India next year. Probably early next year, maybe January/February.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are set to follow in Charles and Diana’s footsteps next Spring when they will embark on a tour of India 24 years after William’s parents visited. Although neither Kate or William, both 33, have journeyed to the country before, the Prince of Wales visited as recently as November 2013, on a nine-day tour. The trip is in the very early stages of planning but both the Government and Kensington Palace were keen to announce it while the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is in the UK. Mr Modi was a guest of the Queen at Buckingham Palace where they lunched together. It is the first visit by an Indian PM in a decade.
Despite details of Kate and William’s trip to India being sketchy, FEMAIL can reveal that the couple will not be taking their children, Prince George, two, and Princess Charlotte, six-months, with them. Prince George travelled with his parents when they went on tour to Australia and New Zealand last year, and was dubbed ‘the republican slayer’ due to his popularity with members of the public. But it is understood William and Kate feel this tour would prove too gruelling for the youngsters, particularly Charlotte who won’t even be a year old. Instead the children will remain in the UK with their nanny, Maria Borallo, and maternal grandparents, Michael and Carole Middleton.
This will not be the first overseas visit the couple have taken without their children having taken a trip to the states without their first born at the end of 2014. The couple spent several days in New York city in December last year without George who remained at home in the care of Borallo.
[From The Daily Mail]
That NYC trip wasn’t the only trip they made without the kids! Will and Kate notably went on a luxury vacation to the Maldives in March 2014, just after Will went boar-hunting with Jecca Craig and just after Kate went to Mustique with her family. Prince George did not join them for that vacation and they left him with Nanny Maria, who was then just days into the new job. Now, that being said, I don’t really blame them for not wanting to bring the kids on an official tour. They’ll be busy, or they’ll be as “busy” as Will and Kate ever get. Still, it would have been nice to get some photo-ops with the babies in India.
As for the trip itself… this is totally my bias, but my father was born in the last years of India’s inclusion in the British Empire (when India was called “the jewel in the crown”) and while he loved that India became a vibrant, independent democracy, he was also something of a royalist and an Anglophile. I would imagine that politics aside, most Indians will be pleased to see Will and Kate.
