Kate Middleton

The United Kingdom isn't a huge place and that's easy to forget sometimes because our Royal Family is influential. I grew up middle class but in a town near Highgrove and attended the University of Cambridge for 2 years (but didn't get my degree). I studied natural sciences and haven't returned to education since so apologies for any grammar problems or peculiarities in my writing.

I care for my mum and I have been working a fair amount on cooking recipes in my notebook but they look more like science experiments so I don't know where this blog is heading at the moment. I feel obliged to write about the Royal Family today from my humble corner of the internet, whilst it still exists, after: the release of With Love, Meghan and the return of the Princess of Wales to work.

I see a real disconnect between online and real life, where Kate Middleton is concerned. I could start there: I don't think I've heard anybody refer to her (in real life) with a title. It leads me to an odd situation where I don't know what to call her even is this blog post. Online she seems to be everywhere and influencing everything so I know many people must be paying a lot of attention to her but she is so rarely mentioned in conversation. I see newspaper front pages in supermarkets but I don't buy newspapers since I am usually too tired to spend time reading them - they are often detailed and require at least a high level of general knowledge if not a good understanding of Westminster and to a certain extent global politics.

I guess better the devil you know is the phrase that springs to mind with Meghan Markle, if she is as difficult as is being said but I honestly wouldn't know how to know anymore. Specifically what is more odd about the situation with Princess Catherine is that what was too obvious to point out when she was dating Prince William and when she got married is now too controversial to say. I honestly write this with an awareness that somebody might screenshot this and throw is in my face when she becomes queen. Also soz Grandma.

I'll speak from my perspective and any common ground - which isn't much or very imaginative but somehow nobody seems to be saying anything remotely similar online. When I was in sixth form I dressed like her (I was skinny, over 6ft tall, and very self-conscious, not helped by the fact that I had joined a grammar school from a comprehensive school). I often shopped in charity shops but did show off my figure usually and always wore make-up and just generally looked healthy.

I ended up feeling like a cheap version of her. She seemed like an air-brushed version of me. At this time my school bus went through Tetbury every day and I had a crush on the son of Prince Charles' home farm manager (who was my older brother's friend) - it was embarrassingly obvious and unrequited. In hindsight I can see how I too might have been making people feel bad about themselves based on my figure and how I dressed. I was busy studying and didn't have a strong circle of friends at sixth form so didn't think too much of it but as an adult I wonder if I was shallow and think more about this. A lot of the vitriol around Meghan Markle seems to arise from how perfectly she presents her life and how much attention she pays to her appearance - particularly her figure but honestly I think it's difficult to comment - and the comments I have seen seem incredibly harsh -when this principle isn't being applied at all to the Princess of Wales.

For up to five years, I think, there have been nice trends on Instagram of people demonstrating the difference between how they present their lives on Instagram and what their real lives are like. I don't see much real in what is presented by Kate Middleton online and I think this is quite toxic. Hopefully Princess Catherine is making a difference but she must be more aware than she lets on that she makes other people feel like failures. Lots of mothers must have felt inadequate when she appeared with her newborns looking fabulous and now even sufferers of long-term health problems have to contend with the vision of her frolicking on Norfolk beaches with her perfect family.