Queen meets Kate Middleton's parents

Queen meets Kate Middleton's parents

SM*SH -AS any experienced shopper knows, it is a good idea to have a careful look at what you are letting yourself in for before making a commitment.

So, while Kate Middleton spent the day shopping for honeymoon outfits in Chelsea, her parents were 32km away in Windsor, having lunch with the Queen.

The meeting did not come a moment too soon. Even though Prince William has been dating Miss Middleton for more than eight years, it was the first time that her parents had met the Queen.

For a meeting laden with such significance, it came as a surprise to both royal watchers and Palace insiders alike. Just over 24 hours ago royal sources declared that the Queen had not met Miss Middleton's parents, and had no plans to do so before the royal wedding.

Mike and Carole Middleton drove to Windsor Castle, where, for an hour and a half, they enjoyed what was described as a "very convivial" lunch with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh.

Despite the apparent abrupt turn-around in the Queen's attitude to her grandson's future parents-in-law, the event is understood to have been a longstanding diary engagement.

When it first emerged in January that the Queen had not met Mrs Middleton and did not intend to do so before the wedding, the seeming snub was taken as symptomatic of the apparent lack of welcome extended by the Royal Family to outsiders joining them by marriage.

The lunch went some way to correct that impression. "It was very informal, very relaxed," a source said. "There was lots of laughter."

The small lunch party included one of the Queen's private secretaries and an equerry. Although it is not known what was served, let alone what they talked about, it can be taken as read that the topics of conversation included the wedding and horses. As a source said: "It would have been unthinkable not to talk about the wedding."

It would have been almost as unlikely for them not to talk about horse racing, one of the Queen's abiding interests. The Queen is an owner and breeder of thoroughbreds, and Mr and Mrs Middleton are said to be part-owners of a race horse, Sohraab.

The Middletons also live in the same county as the Queen and have a large home in the hamlet of Chapel Row in the parish of Bucklebury, near Reading.

The meeting would have been a relatively short drive for the couple, whose mail order business, Party Pieces, which sells party paraphernalia, is based close to their home.

There have been a number of occasions when the Middletons came close to meeting the Queen during William's courtship of their daughter. They were present when the Queen and Prince Philip attended William and Kate's graduation at St Andrews University in 2005, but did not actually meet. Another near-miss occurred when when they went to Sandhurst for the Prince's passing-out parade in 2006.

They are believed to have met William's father, the Prince of Wales, a number of times and spent a weekend at Birkhall, Charles's Scottish home, although the Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall were not there.

As part of her gradual initiation into the royal circle, Miss Middleton has met the Queen several times. In December she joined her for a pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace.

Meanwhile, with just over a week to the wedding, the bride-to-be whiled away her time between rehearsals by shopping on the Kings Road for the second day running. On Tuesday she spent $345 on outfits from Warehouse: yesterday she shopped in Whistles.

source