The Queen.

It’s actually quite cruel of us to expect her to carry on until the day she dies. Everyone deserves to not have to live up to the expectations of others when they’re nearly 96 years old.

I agree with every word volver.

CatterySlave1

Most 95 year olds would be sitting with their feet up but she is still working. Yes actually working. She has a full Red Box of Government Papers to go through each morning with her Private Secretary, 300 engagements a year, weekly PM discussions, and even mundane things like viewing and agreeing the menu plans 3 days ahead! If a very physically active lady like herself isn’t able to walk her beloved dogs anymore, a task she personally enjoyed and didn’t often delegate to others, and has occasionally of late been seen using a stick, then indeed she must be fairly frail as she’d hate to show it!
As for retirement, absolutely no chance because she’d view it as having failed in her sworn duty, so she’d never consider it! That’s absolutely not saying that she won’t delegate more and more visits and tasks to younger Royals, as she should but she’d never retire/abdicate. Unfortunately I don’t see her living to 100 like her Mother and won’t be surprised if she’s not gone in the next year or two sadly. Our Country will be poorer for her passing.

With the greatest respect to HMQE, how do you know she still does the boxes, other than what we've been told by courtiers? Definitely less than 300 engagements a year now, even if you call a nice chat with Mr Trudeau an "engagement". She was doing 300 a year before and we hardly see her now.

And is it only the Republicans like me that find it distasteful in the extreme to see comments like "she'll be gone soon, you mark my words!!" And only the Republicans that think a woman in her mid nineties needs to be bound by something she said 70 years ago?

We ask too much of her, and saying "she likes it though" is no excuse.

Lucca

Here’s a HOS …..
For you Volver
m.youtube.com/watch?v=PKHGp1XPv48&fbclid=IwAR3x7FLAXYJLAhf-h5s4jWEehHSI8p2v5paRde6ndfF-xWbCZ2uISQ8XC2s

ooohh....

It’s lovely when they’re like that isn’t it? My mum wasn’t really independent from when she came to live near us, but she was okay. After lockdown she went on to have the three falls and that was the end of independence I’m afraid. She often says she wants to die, and even though she wasn’t a great mum, I feel sorry for her and think it would be better for her if she went quietly in her sleep.

My mother is now much less mobile, thanks to the pandemic, and she doesn’t go out now, sadly. She still feels she had a lot to live for and is always keen to keep up with the news, with family and the latest trends or fads, as she’d say. Tired of life she isn’t.

I have to say that of course care homes and hospitals for the elderly are full of infirm people. The hale and hearty won’t be there, they’ll be out living their lives! The oldest person in our street died the year before the pandemic. She was 94yo (when I saw her she always asked if my mother was still alive. ) looked after herself without any help and then died in her sleep one night after she’d had a pleasant evening with one of her grandchildren who’d come to visit.

Mum’s last cousin died earlier this year. He was 96, again lived at home and was self-sufficient. He was even internet dating until the pandemic put a stop to everything! He died a month after a stroke.

A 92 year old man told me sadly last week that, 'You can live too long you know.' His wife had died and he was just too old and tired to go on. Yet he does.

Thank you for flowers SueDonim.
Seeing how my mother is, I truly do not wish to live to 94/95. My mother is not demented, she still has her faculties, but they are badly failing. But her body has given up, she has to have a hoist to get her out of bed. It’s sad.

The Queen is a very lucky lady. Despite her physical difficulties, she appears to be very aware and as some say, as sharp as a knife. It’s not the norm at nearly 96, however much we would like it to be.

GSM
The basis of my opinion is not merely based on one person. My mother and my father in law, both 94, are in similar circumstances. My father in law is a little better than my mother. However the basis of my opinion is the care home where my mother lives. It is full of 90 somethings who are unable to look after themselves any longer. They are in wheelchairs, or use walkers, or are bedridden. Before we chose that home we looked at several others. They were all full of very old people who need to be looked after. The home my mother was discharged into after her third fall and her broken shoulder was also full of similar old people. When I visited mum in hospital after she broke her shoulder she was on the elderly care ward, which was full of very old people, and I mean very old, who showed every sign of being exactly the same.
If your experience is limited to one person, then I would suggest with the greatest of respect that perhaps it is you who doesn’t know the true facts. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one very sharp old lady doesn’t mean that the majority are the same.

My neighbour is 95 and as sharp as a knife - physically finding life a challenge, but absolutely capable of decision making, and keeping herself up with not just local but world affairs. She acknowledges that she is lucky. The Queen is also lucky, and seems to be retaining her sharp well informed mind. Were she mentally frail I cannot imagine she would still be tackling the red boxes.

Here’s a HOS …..
For you Volver
m.youtube.com/watch?v=PKHGp1XPv48&fbclid=IwAR3x7FLAXYJLAhf-h5s4jWEehHSI8p2v5paRde6ndfF-xWbCZ2uISQ8XC2s

I don't know the basis of your opinion that 'the greater majority' of people of the Queen's age are like your mother Maddy. I quite understand if that belief gives you some comfort and I sympathise with you, but I certainly don't equate what we see of the Queen with your own experience. I have only one friend the same age as the Queen and she's amazingly sharp. We have seen the Queen recently and there is nothing to suggest that she is anything other than in full possession of her mental faculties.

Good post CatterySlave1.

Sparklefizz

^That's what we've agreed is a good way to run the country.^

But volver, she doesn't "run the country".

And that’s not what Volver meant

Anniebach

GSM you don’t get it sorry, the aged must be hidden away, some don’t ’do tolerance, understanding’ here now

Where has anyone said that !???

It would be good though, wouldn't it?

Oh no, not that f***ing man Johnson again!

No, I don’t think the Queen is a loose cannon either.

Dempie55

I think she is perhaps becoming more frail mentally. She is 95, and, despite people saying that she is still sharp as a tack, I doubt this is true. I fear she may be a bit of a loose cannon in public.

No really I’m no royalist but that is ridiculous !! She’s nothing like a loose cannon.

Most 95 year olds would be sitting with their feet up but she is still working. Yes actually working. She has a full Red Box of Government Papers to go through each morning with her Private Secretary, 300 engagements a year, weekly PM discussions, and even mundane things like viewing and agreeing the menu plans 3 days ahead! If a very physically active lady like herself isn’t able to walk her beloved dogs anymore, a task she personally enjoyed and didn’t often delegate to others, and has occasionally of late been seen using a stick, then indeed she must be fairly frail as she’d hate to show it!
As for retirement, absolutely no chance because she’d view it as having failed in her sworn duty, so she’d never consider it! That’s absolutely not saying that she won’t delegate more and more visits and tasks to younger Royals, as she should but she’d never retire/abdicate. Unfortunately I don’t see her living to 100 like her Mother and won’t be surprised if she’s not gone in the next year or two sadly. Our Country will be poorer for her passing.

I’m sorry you have a difficult time with your mother, Maddyone.

I don’t agree that’s how most people in their mid-90’s are, though. Not the ones I’ve known, anyway and certainly not in my family.

volver

I suggested that on another thread and was told I was ungrateful and asking too much of her.

Yes but that’s YOU !!

I’ve just returned from visiting my mother. I took her a couple of things that she asked for, plus a birthday card to my sister for her to write. She wanted to send a cheque to sister for her birthday, we had to destroy one cheque because she got muddled and filled it in incorrectly, and I then wrote a new one and mum signed it. She wrote ‘happy birthday’ in the card but forgot to write ‘from mum.’ I’m saying this just to show how the greater majority of 94/95 year olds are. Mother was in bed again, she frequently doesn’t get up. The Queen is a lucky woman to be as good as she is, but we should not be taken in by official pronouncements that she’s fulfilling her duties. She’s not, she’s signing some papers and meeting some people via zoom. She met the Canadian Prime Minister in person last week at Windsor Castle. She should have been at the Commonwealth service today. I watched some of it with mother in her room. Nonetheless the Queen is much better than my mother.

Thank you for the flowers Fanny. Much appreciated. Being the one person who an old lady relies on isn’t easy, but now she’s in a home it’s easier than when we did all her washing, shopping etc when she lived in the sheltered apartment.

This is the picture

I think she has osteoporosis of the spine - and all the other things previous posters mention. The family are doing the right thing and filling in as and when. While she can still do the paperwork, it will help her morale.

There is a lovely picture of the Queen on my BBC news feed. Sorry don't know how to transfer it to here.