Hannelore said:
I'm sorry but your information must be wrong. 1,138 royal duties in a year??? I gather she does not work in the weekends, so that makes more than 4 duties per day. That's absurd. If she does 261 duties per year (one for each working day) it will already be a lot. And I don't think she goes on visit somewhere every day.
Mind you, I do know Anne is very hardworking but IMO your figures are completely wrong and you're giving us a bit of a wrong image here...
I don't think Ennyllorac is wrong necessarily, and it's rather impolite to accuse someone of being wrong and giving a distorted image, especially if one doesn't have all the facts or doesn't see the broader picture.
Consider the following:
Firstly, many royals work on the weekends as well as evenings -- being a royal is not restricted to the hours of 9 to 5 solely. So, it is very possible that Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Anne and royals of other households
do work on the weekends.
Secondly, in a day royals are known to have more than one agenda on their schedule. One day doesn't necessarily equate with only one duty. Royals are the patrons of numerous charities as well as being invited to many other special dedications, occasions, lunches and dinners, awards presentations, etc. And as some of these events only take an hour or two it would be perfectly reasonable to say attend a luncheon and then attend a late afternoon or early evening event as well.
Consider also when royals visit other nations: Because such visits take so much planning and years in advance, they cram as much into their 2 or 3 day visit as possible. When Felipe and Letizia visited South America earlier this summer this was very much the case. We saw pictures of them attending a breakfast with important poltical figures in the morning, a trip to a museum after that, followed by lunch with literary figures then to a dedication in the afternoon followed by a semi-formal/formal dinner in the evening. That in itself is 5 events in one day.
Thirdly, each royal household defines what constitutes a "royal duty" differently. And some royal calendars may list only some events but not all, while other royal calendars may list everything and anything. For example, in August some royal courts considered royals attending the Olympic games in Athens as being part of their royal duties, while others did not.
Also, some royals -- for example the Dutch royals -- are commonly known for showing up "spontaneously" for royal visits. While these events are certainly very well planned, they are not listed on the royal web site and not publicized as other events are.
You make it sound like Anne is a 90 year old woman! She is a woman of middle age and "at her age" many women around the world are still working at their jobs, and active, contributing citizens who nurture their families, their friends and their communities. And considering the lineage of robust and healthy women Anne comes from I would say that we can expect much more from Anne for the next several decades.
