Work at the moment is quite depressing.
The royal year 2020 thus far wasn’t really much of a joy, with some announced divorces, deaths, royal splits and scandals everybody probably would like to forget as as soon as possible. There were a few things everybody really looked forward to, which brightened up the royalty watching, and that has been limited to a few pregnancies now.
The covid-19 virus (better known as the corona virus) is rapidly spreading over the world. It causes more and more royals in the past weeks to cancel or postpone their engagements. So don’t expect any state visits in the coming weeks, or further away in time. I seriously expect the royal families will hardly go out anymore and any nice festivities will be cancelled.
In fact it has already started: no festivities for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s 80th birthday … all cancelled. So now I am busy cancelling my own trip with as little financial damage as possible. Next to come are probably celebrations like King’s Day, the Invictus Games, the Eurovision Song Contest, and anything else that would usually have brightened up the royalty watching life.
My work at the moment mainly exists of monitoring the royals and seeing what is happening there because of the virus, and that is cancellations, tests and more cancellations. One thing for sure either have very little work in the coming weeks, or are overloaded with corona-news. So different from what we had hoped for.
But let’s hope the people we care for and ourselves remain healthy. I hope the royals are really taking this virus serious and give a good example to their people how to actually behave. Only the British royals are still going strong, although I am not quite sure if that’s a good idea. I have heard some stories about totally irresponsible people in the world that are hard to believe. I was suffering from the flu in the past days and have remained indoors, even when at the start that wasn’t requested yet (it is now), and hope everybody does that. Although I must admit that for me probably the best thing is to stay at home anyway, as I am not quite sure how much at risk I am after my health problems of the past two years.
At least we can still look forward to the birth of a future heir to Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie of Luxembourg, and the second child of the King and Queen of Bhutan.
All of you: stay safe!