On Thursday, Queen Elisabeth II appeared all smiles in a 24-second video broadcast by Buckingham Palace. By videoconference, the monarch presented the gold medal for poetry to the English poet David Constantine, chatting with him through screens. While she was put to rest for at least two more weeks by her doctors, the Queen is “in very good shape,” said Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome in an interview this Saturday.
🥇The 2020 winner of The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, David Constantine, has been officially presented with his medal during a virtual Audience with The Queen.
David was joined at Buckingham Palace by the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, who chairs the Poetry Medal Committee. pic.twitter.com/HWGUqkNCS1
– The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) October 28, 2021
“I have spoken to Her Majesty and she is in very good shape,” said the head of the British government in an interview with the British channel Channel 4, being reassuring on the state of the sovereign of 95 years. “She just needs to take the advice of her doctors and get some rest,” Boris Johnson continued. “I think the whole country is sending him their best wishes.”
No official travel for (at least) two weeks
The Queen, who spent a night in the hospital last week to undergo “preliminary examinations”, in Buckingham Palace’s terms, had to regret to cancel her trip to the COP26 on climate in Glasgow (Scotland, United Kingdom), a few days after giving up a trip to Northern Ireland. The sovereign must renounce any official travel for at least two more weeks, Buckingham announced Friday evening. It will nevertheless be able to continue to carry out “light tasks”, including hearings by videoconference, specified the palace.
The queen must thus cancel her participation in the festival of remembrance on November 13, which pays tribute to British and Commonwealth soldiers, but she “maintains the firm intention” to be present at the event which marks Remembrance Sunday the next day around. of the cenotaph in London, specifies the royal communiqué published on Friday.
If she has not laid a wreath at the foot of the monument itself since 2017, she attends the ceremony from the balcony of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the Times Saturday.
The Queen was put to rest on October 20, the day after a reception at Windsor Castle where she appeared chatting with her Prime Minister Boris Johnson and American businessman Bill Gates. Elisabeth II, whose husband Prince Philip died last April at the age of 99, was recently seen walking with a cane, a first since 2004.