The Queen has been seen standing at Windsor Castle and smiling following her missing the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph.
The monarch, aged 95, held a face-to-face audience with General Sir Nick Carter, the current chief of the defence staff, as he prepares to step down from the role at the end of this month.
The Queen had been forced to cancel a series of her official engagements over the past two months, most recently pulling out of the Remembrance Sunday service, located at the Cenotaph, as a result of a sprained back.
She was pictured smiling as she was meeting General Sir Nick within the castle’s Oak Room.
This comes after deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam has said that the UK is now moving at “considerable pace” with its booster programme. The COVID booster vaccines rollout has been extended to all adults over the age of 40 from today, it has now been announced.
Dressed in a green, orange, and white floral dress and wearing a string of pearls, the Queen, who is also head of the Armed Forces, shook hands with General Sir Nick as they began talking.
Prior to meeting with Sir Nick, the Queen held another audience with the commanding officers of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards via a video call, Buckingham Palace has said.
The meeting with Sir Nick is the first time in nearly a month that the Queen has been pictured carrying out an official in-person engagement, as she is following orders from doctors to rest for nearly a month.
The last time she had been seen in public was on the 19th of October, when she hosted a reception for the global investment summit at Windsor Castle.
The following day, she had an overnight stay at the King Edward VII Hospital in central London – her first in eight years.
Advisors cancelled a planned two-day trip to Northern Ireland the same day, and a week later cancelled the Queen’s trip to Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit.
This comes after the PM tore up the independent system for combating sleaze within parliament on Wednesday as he threw the government’s weight behind protecting a Tory MP who was found to have repeatedly breached lobbying rules.
She held a face-to-face audience with Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week but was not pictured doing so.
The Queen’s ill-health has increased the focus on the necessity for her son, Prince Charles, and other Royal family members to step up and support the monarch.
Both the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are visiting Jordan and Egypt this week, making them the first members of the Royal Family to carry out a major overseas tour since the COVID-19 pandemic had started.
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