It has emerged today that the Queen won’t return to Buckingham Palace anytime soon after her traditional Balmoral summer break. Instead, she will be living at Windsor Castle and only commute to London for appointments. Due to the corona pandemic, the Queen will continue to self-isolate in Windsor Castle together with a selected group of staff that had already been at her and Prince Philip’s side ever since the queen went into lockdown on March 19, 2020. Together they were said to have formed a social bubble which grants the monarch and her husband a higher chance of not catching the virus.

Buckingham Palace

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/778453/Buckingham-Palace-Windsor-Castle-host-Commonwealth-business-summit

These news ultimately render Buckingham Palace a working palace and Windsor Castle the Queen’s home. The Queen is to be believed to have always preferred Windsor Castle over Buckingham Palace as Windsor Castle is more rural than Buckingham Palace in London. For a woman who allegedly was said to would have loved to lead a country life if she hadn’t become Queen, Buckingham Palace – in the midst of London – must have always felt quite hectic.

Windsor Castle

Andrew Morton, the famous biographer of Diana, Princess of Wales, feared that the Queen might hardly been seen in public until the pandemic is over. According to him, it is unsafe for the Queen to conduct public outings as she used to. A few selected key events, however, are too important to be obliterated from the Queen’s schedule this year. Remembrance Day in November is one of those events and the royal household is believed to be planning for the Queen to appear but to have as few contact to other people as possible.

At the end of the year, the Queen will spend her Christmas together with her family at Sandringham in Norfolk. Traditionally, she spends her Christmas holidays there until February 6, the day her father King George VI. has died.

Sandringham House