The Queen has moved her two closest staff members to Windsor, strongly suggesting that plans for a less active role are now ongoing.

Angela Kelly, once told by the Queen “We could be sisters”, is her personal assistant and “gatekeeper” who wakes her in the morning with a cup of Darjeeling tea. She began her Palace career as a housemaid and was born in a council house. Now she’s moved from an apartment in Marlborough House on the Mall to a house in Windsor Home Park within the Castle grounds.

Paul Whybrew, the Queen’s personal page, is the son of a bank manager. He has recently moved from Kensington Palace to a grace-and-favour property in Windsor.

Her Majesty is gradually scaling down her duties, handing more investitures to Prince Charles, and the role of “face of the Monarchy” to Prince William. The process is probably being hastened by her increasing health problems, especially the apparently chronic attacks of sciatica.

An interesting snippet in Katie Nichol’s column in The Mail on Sunday reports that her “Palace mole” claims that Kate Middleton is stung by the many accusations that she’s lazy.

Kate has obviously been reading the forums and perhaps Royal Anecdotes, where that seems to be the main topic of interest these days.

The mole says : “Looking at wallpaper and fabrics with a view to doing up a home got her thinking about designing as a profession. A friend is starting a career in interior design and Kate has told her she’s keen to do something in the same field.”

We’ve reported before that Kate has been doing up one of the properties at Harewood Park in Herefordshire, possibly Home Farm. It’s expected that the couple will move in as soon as William finishes his stint at Sandhurst.

One “career” Kate should never take up is house breaking. She was locked out of her London flat last week, with William waiting in the background. Trying his keys, they wouldn’t work either. In the end they gave up and drove off in separate cars. It’s interesting that the Prince has his own keys to her house and flat, even if they don’t seem to work very well.

We now have a Royal Accessories Store onsite to help you make those difficult choices in the run-up to the Christmas and other festivals season. You’ll find it towards the top of the sidebar.

It’s hosted on Amazon.com and contains lots of pages of jewellry and watches etc. for the would-be Royal about town.

If anyone would like other items displayed, let me know, and we’ll set them up too.

Have a great holidays season whatever you do.

Reluctantly, I’m going to report this story as it now seems to have some legs, but I’ll start with the good (or bad) news — depending on your point of view.

Ten days ago, Kate Middleton’s parents invited Prince William to the family’s Bonfire Night party where one guest reported : “William and Kate were so happy about getting back together they spent the rest of the night canoodling openly in front of her parents. It was quite a show.”

The Sunday Express ran with the news that William had got involved in a snogging session with an unknown female at a party after having a few drinks.

A source said: “Kate decided they should have a cooling off period after she had confronted him over something she was told about him supposedly snogging another girl at a party after he’d had one drink too many. Kate is no pushover and speaks her mind. She told Wills that if he fancied other girls they ought to have a break from one another to consider where the relationship was going.”

But all’s well that ends well. Kate’s mother Carole managed to convince her determined daughter to give William a second chance and she invited him to the family’s Bonfire Night party at their home in the Berkshire village of Bucklebury.

The rest is history.