New picture of late Queen with her great/grandchildren by Princess of Wales

[RYGO]

New picture of late Queen with her great/grandchildren by Princess of Wales

I wonder if there's any particular reason why the family are invited in climps?

OK, Balmoral is huge and could probably accommodate all of them

But here we have the (then) Wessexes and (then) Cambridges, with the Phillipses and Tindalls.

I wonder if there was another clump with all the Yorks / Mapelli Mozzis / Brooksbanks?

The other ones are Mia Tindall (Zara and Mike's eldest) holding Lucas, their youngest. Lena, their middle one is perched on the sofa arm. The other two girls are Peter Phillips's two, Savannah and Isla.

👏🙂
There is no doubting the paternity of the baby.

The two girls on the left with the baby are Zara’s kids - Mia, Lena and Lucas - the two girls on the right are her brother Peter's daughters Savannah and Isla

It seems from years of different versions of these photos that Anne, Edward and Charles’ children and grandchildren used to all go to Balmoral at the same time each year.

Presumably Andrew and his family wanted to go separately?

Even so, it has always looked to me as if the cousins were close.
Also, there was a video clip of some family members walking back to their cars at Windsor after the Queen's burial. It was a shot taken from behind so you couldn't see faces but Sophie and Beatrice were arm-in-arm with Andrew and Louise looked very upset and Eugenie had her arm round her and gave her a hug.

I thought that (if the Gyles Brandreth account is being given credence) it was myeloma? Which is a form of blood cancer. Several blood cancers are hostile to bones, because of the role of the marrow, but actual bone cancer is quite a different thing.

A shame Archie and Lilibet weren’t there not!

I never said it was a candid shot. i said it's not a formal, planned shot. You never been for lunch with your family and gone "ah its so nice to get all the kids together, let's get some cute photos of them and grandma" together?

I have

😀Thank you! There are some things money can't buy and being in a group of grandchildren around a frail great grandma is high up on the list.

Whenever all my kids, nieces and nephews are together (adults now) we always get them together for a range of sensible and not-so-sensible shots. In fact, they're the ones who instigate it now and they've also taken to reconstructing pics from when they were kids, even down to the youngest sitting on the oldest's lap.
Heck, me and my siblings and cousins are all in our 50s and 60s now but we still get into age order for photos in steps, just like our grandmother used to insist upon.

I bet they get on differently. I mean, it's a lot of people. They must tend to fall into camps that mix more easily together.

That sounds like fun. I think that sometimes you need to lay your differences aside to give your kids those kinds of experiences. Even if it is impossible to make up on any level, just let the kids have that opportunity to interact and get to know each other.

And also, they're busy people with full diaries and holidays planned. I would imagine it's nigh-on impossible for everyone to be there, unless it's something like a major birthday, jubilee or coronation.

Isla Philips looks very like Zara!

They also likely spread out the visits so that Granny has visitors all summer rather than 56 visitors for two weeks and then none for the rest.

Is he the Duke of Wessex now that his parents have had an upgrade?

Yes, I thought she was one of Zara's daughters for a minute until I worked out who was who.

He is.

So will they all be crowding around KC and CPB (with her GC) in the next Balmoral picture or is it the end of an era?

Have you never taken a family photo? I have one almost identical to this with my grandma sitting down surrounded by myself, siblings and cousins. It’s my favourite photo of us. I think it was taken by my grandpa.

I think the grouping at Balmoral may be historical because of how Prince Philip felt about Fergie. He wouldn't stay if she was there, and when he was alive it was always reported that the weekend he left then Fergie would come up. Presumably the York girls would want to be there with their parents.

There probably was some overlap with some of the other grandkids staying longer or across the weekend where Philip left and Fergie arrived.

I can see how you'd fall into a pattern of always being there with the same cousins.

We have a big family holiday every year and try to overlap with specific cousins rather than others because we just click better together.

Yes, but I wouldn't "release" my casual and not very good family snapshots with a fanfare to national news agencies.

End of an era.

Firstly because Anne's grandkids and Edward's kids are not Charles' grandchildren. And while you might come for a holiday with granny. Holidays with uncle, great uncle aren't as much as a thing.

Also Charles and Camilla seem to like their Birkhall house more than Balmoral.

Maybe William Peter, and Zara will still try to have a Scotland meet up once a year for the sake of their kids.

It would be nice to think that there could be years of photos of Charles with all his grandchildren - seeing them grow up in a photo like this taken over and over again across the years. But that seems very unlikely now.

So am I.

But my 'it' may well be different to yours 😂