I understand what you're saying, that this isn't a personal accolade for Catherine and I didn't intend to mean otherwise, but I still can't help feeling that as a novice - and she still is, despite the confident appearances she's made and her ease in performing whatever duties she must - she has to feel it rather daunting to partake in these ceremonies and have such a spectrum of honors directed at her by means of her position. I just try to put myself in that situation of coming from an ordinary background to such a status as this, with all the adjustments this has to involve, and I would find it very surreal.
I fully agree with you. It must be difficult for anybody who was not born to and raised for such a position to be suddenly not only a person, but part of history in a way. But the way she conducts her duties remind me very much of the grace the ladies in the fifties fulfilled public appearances - stylish, smiling, friendly, yet dignified and always just the slightest bit aloof. Think of young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. Or OTOH a filmstar like Audrey Hepburn who really was a wonderful, ladylike appearance. Catherine reminds me a lot of those timeless, classic ladies.
Strange that I never felt that way with Diana, who was so much a person of the 80ties and 90ties with the change from untouchable lady to common-touch celebrity. Not that I want to diminish Diana but I prefer a lady a bit more, hmmm, reserved. But that's just my opinion, of course. But I wouldn't wonder if the queen, Anne and Camilla realised that Catherine is cut from the same stock as they.