The Princess of Wales made her third public appearance of the year today. I’ll say something nice: I’m genuinely glad she’s feeling well enough to get back to some kind of public schedule. Kensington Palace has been effective in lowering expectations around Kate and her work, so whenever she does pop up, it’s always a positive story regardless. It also feels like someone/something lit a fire under Prince William and Kate’s asses this month. Maybe it was Meghan’s Instagram or her Netflix show (which they seem exceptionally aware of), or maybe it was the Murdochs settling with Prince Harry. I do not know. In any case, Kate visited a children’s hospice in South Wales earlier today. She spent time with children and their families, and she was made the royal patron of the charity.
Kate Middleton is making a poignant visit to a children’s hospice in Wales that had close links to another Princess of Wales before her. On Thursday, Jan. 30, Princess Kate, 43, visited Tŷ Hafan, a charity that helps children with life-shortening conditions and their families lead fulfilling lives. Tŷ Hafan — which means “Haven House” in Welsh — is located in Sully, South Wales, and was built with the support of Prince William’s late mother Princess Diana.
Following in Diana’s steps, Kate was also made patron of the charity. Her father-in-law King Charles was previously patron, which he received after Diana died in Paris in 1997.
Irfon Rees, Chief Executive of Tŷ Hafan, said in a statement that they were “deeply honored” that Kate has become Patron.
“As our Patron, Her Royal Highness will be an inspiration for children with life-shortening conditions and their families, our dedicated staff and volunteers and everyone who so generously supports us,” Rees said.
“No parent ever imagines that their child’s life will be short. Sadly this is the reality facing thousands of families in Wales. We can’t stop this happening, but together we can make sure that no one lives their child’s short life alone.”
It was an intensely moving morning for Kate as she spent time with children who are cared for at the hospice, as well as their families. She also took part in a “stay and play” session, in which the children enjoyed meaningful play and activities alongside their care. Seeing how Tŷ Hafan helps the children and families in a holistic manner, Princess Kate was introduced to bereaved families supported by the hospice throughout their children’s lives, deaths and beyond.
This marks the second new patronage for Kate this year, correct? She was added as the co-patron of the Royal Marsden Hospital (William already had that position), and it sounds like King Charles told her to take over this one because she’s Princess of Wales now. That’s notable because for years, Kate’s patronage portfolio stayed very small – she rarely added new patronages, and a couple of her original patronages went away because the charities folded (cough). The way these events are happening and the way they’re being written about (all of it reading like it’s straight from a KP briefing memo)… it sounds like Buckingham Palace has installed some of their people within Kensington Palace after multiple fiascos last year. Everything feels more tightly controlled.
In case you’re wondering about her dress, it’s Zara and it’s a repeat. I remember it because it’s so dated and it looks exactly like a style Diana would have worn in 1984.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
-
- The Princess of Wales, Patron of Ty Hafan Children’s Hospice, speaks to five-year-old Oscar, during a visit to the hospice in Sully, near Cardiff, South Wales, which supports families in Wales to ensure that children with life-shortening conditions live fulfilling lives, are supported with the compassion and specialist care that they and their family need Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Cardiff, United Kingdom When: 30 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- The Princess of Wales, Patron of Ty Hafan Children’s Hospice, has her hand painted by nine-year-old Lottie whose sibling is being treated at the hospice in Sully, near Cardiff, South Wales, which supports families in Wales to ensure that children with life-shortening conditions live fulfilling lives, are supported with the compassion and specialist care that they and their family need Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Cardiff, United Kingdom When: 30 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- The Princess of Wales, Patron of Ty Hafan Children’s Hospice, during a visit to the hospice in Sully, near Cardiff, South Wales, which supports families in Wales to ensure that children with life-shortening conditions live fulfilling lives, are supported with the compassion and specialist care that they and their family need Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Cardiff, United Kingdom When: 30 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- The Princess of Wales, Patron of Ty Hafan Children’s Hospice, during a visit to the hospice in Sully, near Cardiff, South Wales, which supports families in Wales to ensure that children with life-shortening conditions live fulfilling lives, are supported with the compassion and specialist care that they and their family need Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Cardiff, United Kingdom When: 30 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- The Princess of Wales, Patron of Ty Hafan Children’s Hospice, speaks to three-year-old Dani-Rae, during a visit to the hospice in Sully, near Cardiff, South Wales, which supports families in Wales to ensure that children with life-shortening conditions live fulfilling lives, are supported with the compassion and specialist care that they and their family need Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Cardiff, United Kingdom When: 30 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
-
- The Princess of Wales, Patron of Ty Hafan Children’s Hospice, looks at a typical room for young patients, during a visit to the hospice in Sully, near Cardiff, South Wales, which supports families in Wales to ensure that children with life-shortening conditions live fulfilling lives, are supported with the compassion and specialist care that they and their family need Featuring: Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Cardiff, United Kingdom When: 30 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
Wow they were really laying the appearances on thick thinking that Harry would be in town for the trial lol. Invictus is coming so doing more appearances will be necessary lol. Guess they didn’t expect Harry to settle lol. They will need another long vacation after doing all these photo ops.
He also just recorded a video for Well Child, which has a similar remit.
OMG, this is it! Which just proves yet again that they are keeping tabs on what H+M do. They clearly knew that Harry was going to make an announcement about the WellChild nominations… so Hey Presto!… more cloutchasing appearances. It’s not even subtle. I guess we’ll see them every single day during Invictus being photographed with injured veterans so that they can be mentioned in the same breath as H+M.
Not until after Meghan’s Netflix series drops.
@bisynaptic … Well, this ‘would’ have been after Meghan’s Netflix series dropped if not for the L.A. wildfires. I think this whole Kate and William ‘working royals’ campaign was intended to counter Meghan’s show and Harry’s presence in London.
I think it’s a result of the ski trip leak. That really p’d a lot fans off.
So is she working again or is she not?
This can’t be a “surprise” anymore if she’s been making appearances more than her usual quota.
This whole ‘surprise visit’ thing is ridiculous. It’s not a surprise to Kate, her staff, the hospice staff (in this case)–just to the rota. And really, who cares if they’re surprised?
It’s not a surprise to the Rota either it just means the event wasn’t announced to the public before hand and the press isn’t supposed to talk about the event until it occurs
Seems like she makes only surprise visits, because God forbid she actually be expected to show up anywhere.
Good for her – a good cause and it looks like her visit was serious, without the the goofy cosplay of William’s events.
Enough of the,surprise visits. What a prima Donna she is and more jazz hands
Yes. The whole surprise visit is just gimmicky; fine to use once because the shine wears off quickly.
Grown ups schedule things on the up and up. Even when they are “in remission” from “cancer”.
I said this in the other post but I do wonder if BP is putting some rules in place around her appearances. If she wants tiaras, or to borrow new diamonds for the BAFTAs, or whatever, she has do more of these basic events.
I also think its really obvious that this busy run of work for her (well “busy” is a relative term) and William is because they thought WLM was coming out two weeks ago and they are preparing for the IG publicity. It’s all reactive to what the Sussexes do.
It is too bad that the current new release date of WLM isn’t later in March when they will be on vacation.
Oh they’ll be back earlier from holiday just to coordinate some visits with the release.
I know, it cracks me up. They will have to come up with something else in a desperate attempt to pull focus and they already used the biggest card they have – Kate’s remission.
So I actually don’t think they will do a thing during vacation, event-wise. They are not breaking that omertà. Bc once an event is done over a break, it will become an expected thing. At least that’s the wales’ thinking anyways. But random pap pics? Sure. Or some well-timed publications bigging them up as a counterpoint. Yeah.
I think BP put rules in place. These events were also obviously planned with what H&M would be doing (or was supposed to be doing the past two weeks) in mind.
They let her wear Big Blue this time.
Okay so what is it? She’s working or she doesn’t want to work? Which is it? This flurry of appearances by the dreadful duo isn’t just because they thought Harry would be back on shutter island for that trial, but because of the fires in L.A. and the work that the Sussexes are doing there.
They don’t give a damn about anything but appearances and they flop at that too.
When is the last time she visited EACH Anglia, the other children’s hospice she’s been patron of for like a decade?
Hahaha coming here to say this…didn’t she start out with children’s hospice as one of her causes just after she got married, but did very little with it? I guess it’s over a decade later so it’s time for a visit?
It’s really shocking, when juxtaposed with Harry. He lives on a completely different continent, is no longer a “working” royal, and still shows up multiple times a year for WellChild. I can’t believe what the Wails get away with, it boggles the mind.
Surprise visit? Apparently all her visits are a surprise. But this must’ve took planning so instead of surprise maybe it should just be called publicly unannounced visit. But this looks nice and I hope the kids and parents enjoyed it. Sometimes a visit can just be a visit without going on about landmark yada yards. I like the Zara dress but I would’ve worn something more colorful around kids but I doubt the kids mind either way.
I’m assuming that she helicoptered there? I guess that means William won’t be out and about today because the heli is busy.
It’s a good cause and should have done this kind of visits… it’s obvious that someone else is handling the PR of KP…Kate is back and she stays in the royal family for now…I think they (Kate and William) make appearances now because soon it’s the sacred school break and they would disappear…wasn’t William in Wales on Tuesday? Why didn’t they combine the visits and avoid the use of helicopter twice for the same journey? 🤔
Be too close to each other.
Save gasoline? Preserve the environment? NEVER a thought with these two!
That would have taken coordination. And, you know, talking to each other.
Since these are unannounced visits not on the official calendar they could have just cancelled if they were Harry related. I think they are responding to the mild pushback/criticism in the press by working more but not announcing it in advance so the rota needs to scramble and understands their place in the hierarchy.
I’m not a fan of the rota but do I think they get a heads up a few days before but are just asked not to announce until the day of. Bc even I’d be pissed if I got a 5am call that said hurry get to Cardiff! Even something like at 8pm the night before saying rush to Cardiff in the morning would annoy me but I guess that’s being a journalist. But the rota is supposed to mostly operate somewhat differently. So I have to imagine they get a heads up even if it can’t be publicized. But maybe not.
I think they normally get lead time, my point is that W & K may be trying to show the rota that they need to play nice or their workdays are going to get significantly more last minute and stressful.
Yeah I agree that the wales couple will always find tiny little petty ways to mess with people.
Generally speaking the rota knows about these visits in advance – at least one reporter and the photographer do. These types of surprise visits used to mostly only happen for norther ireland but they’ve been Kate’s MO for some time now.
With NI it certainly made sense in the past.
@Becks1 – I’ve long felt that KM’s ‘surprise’ visits are based purely on her waking up, thinks she’s looking good and, voila, visit happens. However, waking up but looking rough = no visit. Simple as that, and cancer or no cancer, this has been her MO for years.
I appreciate her visiting this charity, I wouldn’t be able to handle that emotionally. One of my friends is a chaplain at a children’s hospital, and I just am in awe she’s able to do that, and has been at it 10 years now. She also doesn’t have kids, which might make it less of a daily living her worst nightmare that it would be for me. She’s wonderful with kids and animals and everyone ❤️
I hope they can get her to do more visits to places like this, maybe emphasize that it will make her be what people actually loved about Diana. They need to drop her “sick girl” narrative soon, they’ve made it too confusing and the lies are hard to keep straight.
Also this is apropos of nothing, but I saw a clip that was talking about national average incomes, if the richest city was removed from creating the average, and showing how that impacted the average. So in the US, excluding San Francisco (which I didn’t expect), lowered the national average income some. If you remove London from the UK national average, the average Brit is the same as someone in Mississippi in the US. Blew my mind.
Yes, there is a huge income gap between the south of England and the north of England. The north of England and its industries were deliberately destroyed by Thatcher to privatize the industries and destroy the unions’ political power. Those jobs were replace with nothing. The royals and especially William and Kate have been criticized in the past for rarely leaving London and the south (which is essentially all related to London)
Despite our lack of being impressed I’m sure the kids and parents appreciated the visit. These are small kindnesses they will remember at a time where things must be pretty hard. It’s the type of kindness that costs nothing, is an easy way to spread some good vibes and yes they should be doing a lot of more of it.
While it’s very plausible this sudden burst of WanK events was meant to distract from Harry and Meghan’s real goings-on, there’s another possibility. That’s that Kate needs a little more on the books because she’s about to board an overnight flight for Carole’s 70th tomorrow and might get papped at wherever exotic location that will be. William seems to be playing the same game: a burst of farm, Holocaust and other visits so he can’t be criticized for just showing up at the Aston Villa game.
Anyway, what does “unannounced” mean in her case? She can’t just swoop in and raid a children’s hospice unannounced. This would have had to be organized in advance, no? Does “unannounced” just mean it wasn’t in the Royal Diary? Does “unannounced” mean that, even though it’s clear to everyone involved that she’ll be there, they still want you to believe the “she’ll wake up and see how she feels” story?
I suspect they are boycotting the royal diary.
Let’s hope someone on holiday at the same location gets some spoiler photographs of them to upload.
I hope she didn’t flash the kids while squatting in her ugly dress. She should have worn pants. Par for the course for tone deaf Kitty. The faces she pulls never look genuine.
I remember this dress! Didn’t like it the first time as it looked like 1980s secretary cosplay and I stand by that opinion. Kate just really loves her pussy bows.
As for the event itself, it is notable that Diana was involved with the creation of this children’s hospice. And while the bar is super low, Kate gets some credit adding on another patronage and supporting a cause that’s so difficult for parents to face. Whether that was by her own choice, I’m not sure. As for these visits, they are definitely not surprise visits, just unannounced to the public ahead of time. You don’t just casually drop in to a children’s hospice without prior warning to the staff and parents.
I know it has been said a milion times already, but to me Kitty looks absolutely fine, better than last year and Wills is the one looking sick or recovering from sth serious. They lie so much, your mind wonders….
Harry and Meghan really do have pegg and buttons in a choke hold. Nothing motivates these two more than Harry and Meghan up coming projects and appearances. 😂. Why if only Harry and Meghan could make money off getting these two lazy twats off their asses to finally work. No one else has able to do it .
Secretarial cosplay – check (bonus points for being ‘sartorially inappropriate’ as Vogue would say)
Jazz hands – check
SHE’S BACK!
See, this is an occasion when a little color would have been appropriate. And where are the face masks?
I mean, we know these children are dying (that’s a hard sentence to even type, so some credit to Kate for visiting), but a respiratory infection on top of everything else would be painful.
🎯 😷
I have never understood their aversion to wearing masks at significant moments. During Covid and the train ride fiasco. At the school visit with little children during that train ride fiasco. During the protest when Covid was very much still around and there were ordinances to wear masks in large crowds in public. During all of last year when three royals all claimed to have cancer and all of their immune systems would be compromised. During her visit to Marsden Hospital with chemo patients. And now during this visit with children in hospice. She refuses to wear a mask at the most crucial times.
Covid is not a past tense pandemic.
The WHO still classifies it as an active pandemic.
Masking and filtering indoor air would end it, but no one can be arsed and the ruling classes keep cheering on ignoring a virus destoying the population so that they don’t have to pay to cover the inevitable disabilities and long term illnesses that result from it.
I still mask and have filters at home, but I was immune compromised pre-pandemic. Hasn’t been safe for me to seek medical care for three years now.
Hospitals are complicit in ignoring basic pathogen control.
Kate seems to have made a good visit doing her job. I read that KP donated some musical instruments to help with music therapy, so taking a page out of Archewell’s playbook? It’s also interesting that Kate made this type of visit right after Harry made a video for WellChild. Coincidence or not? Just an observation.
I checked to see if they actually, really, truly, donated musical instruments. Multiple sources say yes–or are at least repeating what they’ve been told to say. One thing I found interesting: Kate was quoted as saying she did that hand painting/handprint thing with her kids that very day. Really? That morning? Before school? Why??
I truly believe that these engagements were organized because KP thought that Harry was going to be in London for the duration of the case against NGN.
The coincidence is overwhelming.
Wow, in the dress it’s scary of skinny Kate is