I wake up at 6.45am to my personal bagpiper piping his bags, as well as a tea tray laden with tea (obviously!), Cornflakes in tupperware boxes for me, or sometimes Special K, and two types of marmalade for Philip who doesn’t usually wake up until around 4pm.
While I’m enjoying the Cornflakes, I use the time to check through my emails. Today there’s three, and they’re all from Philip who’s currently testing out a new hotmail account. After the deluge of emails comes the snail mail, which has been laid out in four large sacks by my bed, surrounded by the corgis.
I rise and go to see my secretaries, which takes roughly four hours because the drawing room is on the other side of the palace and the palace is massive, after looking at a cross section of mail. My secretaries will then respond to the letters on my direction – often writing something kind like ‘Best wishes!’ or ‘Well done for being so old!’. I paraphrase, of course.
Lots of important documents arrive for me to sort through, and while they’re processing, which can take an hour, I get into a pastel suit with a really big hat on standby in case I go outside; one of my staff walks behind me holding the hat, next to the butler holding the chair in case I want to sit down. Saw this on Downton Abbey and thought it was genius.
The afternoon is either spent meeting ministers and various people who want to talk to me about official-sounding things – or playing solitaire (I’m very good) and driving around the grounds while listening to music by popular music band Queen. I also look after the upkeep of Buckingham Palace and oversee the gift shop. By that point it’s time for a jam sandwich lunch alone – thankfully! – and maybe a tiny bit of chocolate cake.
Then more meetings, and another email from Phillip which looks like he’s attempted to take a selfie. It’s of the wall opposite, bless him. Not sure how I feel about selfies – I think they’re a bit strange. The rest of the afternoon is spent doing public appearances where I’ll go and wave at some people – I just love waving – and even though I’ll have to be in the back of the car, many people don’t realise that I can actually change a spark plug; I’m basically the AA in a big hat.
Before dinner, at 6.30pm, I have my regular meeting with the Prime Minister – which I have every week, but it’s all getting quite exciting because soon I’ll have gone through my eleventh one during my reign. Out of the previous ten, my favourite was Winston, who was always highly entertaining (and drunk) and I won’t say who my least favourite is but it rhymes wth Bargaret Batcher. Oh, I’m just joking; we had our differences but I sort of liked her in a way. Anyway, David (Cameron) comes round and, as is customary, I hold him in my arms while he cries and talks about how people don’t like him and that he’s scared of the other party leaders.
Once David has been carried out, I have dinner with whomever is knocking around the palace. Kate and Wills sometimes come round and we eat venison from Balmoral, white peaches from Windsor Castle, washed down with gin and Dubonnet (I like a tipple, but not too much). Part of me wants to cook, but then the other part realises that I’m the Queen so I just rinse the plates afterwards and let the staff sort it out.
Then the parliamentary report arrives which is so goddamn boring, but I have to go through it anyway. Sometimes, I stay up really late going through it but try and be in bed before midnight. It’s difficult to keep my eyes open after a hard day’s Queening.
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As told to Stevie Martin. Follow Stevie on Twitter: @5tevieM
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.