Prince Charles Tries His Hand at Being a Mailman

With Christmas just a week away, Prince Charles has been squeezing in a last round of engagements before taking a break for the holidays. On Friday, he visited a Royal Mail delivery center in Cirencester, wearing a double-breasted suit and a silk mask made by one of his charities. Not content to leave the holiday fun to Kate Middleton and Prince William, Charles even found himself face-to face with an elf and a man dressed up as Santa Claus.

He visited in order to thank postal workers for their work during the pandemic, which led to a rise in package deliveries, and a record-breaking Christmas season, but he also got to indulge in some fantasies of becoming a mailman himself. “It’s very difficult, isn’t it?” he said as postman Mark Messer taught him how to sort. According to the Shropshire Star, Charles also asked Messer how he feels about running into dogs on his route. 

Ever since the U.K. came out of its second lockdown on December 2, Charles has been keeping busy, and the trip to the center was only one of his two Friday events. In the afternoon he traveled to the Corinium Museum, an archaeology museum nearby, to tour their new galleries focusing on the prehistory of the Cotswolds. While touring the medieval section of the museum, Charles told his guides about the discovery of a 1786 shipwreck in the Duchy of Cornwall. “I got a pair of shoes out of it,” he said, because leather was discovered aboard the ship and given to him by local cobblers. “It was amazing reindeer leather, remarkable quality.”

On Thursday, Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall traveled to Gloucestershire to tour a COVID-19 vaccination hub organized by the local hospital. Though the couple spoke to the the staff who have already vaccinated about 1,000 people, they did not receive the vaccine themselves. “I think I am way down the list and will have to wait, he said, according to the Daily Mail.

Earlier this month, Vanity Fair reported that Charles and Camilla are planning to spend Christmas together at Highgrove House, their Gloucestershire estate, but will eventually travel to Windsor to visit with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

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