Princess Anne is in South Africa this week, in what I believe is her first major overseas tour/trip since her unfortunate head injury last spring/summer. Anne was hospitalized for a week after what people assumed was a kick from one of her horses, although it’s still unknown what really happened there. Months before Anne’s head injury, her husband Tim Laurence appeared at an event in March with a black eye. We were told it was from a mishap around the house or garden. I bring up Tim Laurence because he was supposed to join his wife in South Africa, only he had another medical situation.
Princess Anne is on a two-day visit to South Africa, but is undertaking the trip solo and without her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, by her side.
According to Hello!, Sir Tim had to pull out of the royal tour “last minute” because of his recovery from a suspected torn ligament. He was injured while working on their estate, Gatcombe Park, the outlet reported, and needs treatment in the U.K. He is unable to fly to South Africa as a result.
Sir Tim’s injury comes less than a year after Princess Anne’s own injury on their estate. In June, the Princess Royal, 74 — a lifelong equestrian — suffered a concussion and spent five days in the hospital after sustaining a concussion and minor injuries in an incident at Gatcombe Park. Anne’s injuries were consistent with a potential impact from a horse’s head or legs.
Tim Laurence is 69, Anne is 74. In my opinion, they’re both too old to be gallivanting around internationally on behalf of the crown, but clearly, they’re not safe at home either. Two big injuries for Tim within a year, and a head injury for Anne which was lowkey life-altering. I know the Tindalls still live on the Gatcombe estate – is Zara concerned at all about her mother and stepfather? Is she around to check on them? What about Peter? Anyway, best wishes to Tim, a torn ligament is no joke.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- Service of Thanksgiving to mark 200 years of the RNLI at Westminster Abbey, London Featuring: Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence Where: London, United Kingdom When: 04 Mar 2024 Credit: Cover Images
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- Service of Thanksgiving to mark 200 years of the RNLI at Westminster Abbey, London Featuring: Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence Where: London, United Kingdom When: 04 Mar 2024 Credit: Cover Images
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- The Princess Royal arrives for a visit to the South African Riding School for Disabled Association (SARDA)while on her two-day to trip to South Africa. Featuring: Princess Anne Where: South Africa When: 21 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Princess Royal in the stables during a visit to the South African Riding School for Disabled Association (SARDA) while on her two-day to trip to South Africa. Featuring: Princess Anne Where: South Africa When: 21 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Princess Royal views the Princess Anne rose with Anja Taschner (right) daughter of Ludwig Taschner of Ludwig’s Roses, during a visit to the British High Commission Residence garden in Pretoria, while on her two-day to trip to South Africa. Featuring: Princess Anne with Anja Taschner Where: Pretoria, South Africa When: 21 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Princess Royal adds soil to the Princess Anne rose with Anja Taschner (right) daughter of Ludwig Taschner of Ludwig’s Roses and Antony Phillipson British High Commissioner to the Republic of South Africa, during a visit to the British High Commission Residence garden in Pretoria, while on her two-day to trip to South Africa. Featuring: Princess Anne with Anja Taschner (right) and Antony Phillipson British High Commissioner to the Republic of South Africa Where: Pretoria, South Africa When: 21 Jan 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
“…clearly, they’re not safe at home either.” Reader, I’m not proud to admit it, but I cackled at this…
Also, Old Folks Falling Or With Unexplained Injuries Repeatedly = Booze or dementia, in my experience…
Or, you know, slower reflexes, less agility, less strength, harder to recover balance, worsening eyesight & hearing. 🙄
I know the feeling.
How is one head injury for Ann translated into repeated injuries equals booze or dementia? Don’t reach too far.
Reaching, I know. My 79 year old mother tripped 2 days ago and has a black eye. She is neither a drunk or suffering from dementia.
My 73 year old mother fell in the yard on some ice and broke her wrist. She required surgery to repair it and a short term of physical therapy. She was neither drunk nor demented. Just hit with bad luck.
An old person getting one or two injuries in a year isn’t “repeatedly.” And in my experience (with my parents and several relatives), the elderly can get the most horrific-looking bruises from minor incidents incurred as they go about their everyday business. Nothing to do with drinking or dementia, it’s just called getting old.
My 75 year old mom gets the most horrific bruises from even minor injuries, even just bumping a table. The skin thins out and there are other issues with aging as well.
Or maybe they babysit the raging one?
I’m almost 70, tripped over garden hose this afternoon and came close to falling down.
The great fear of “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” is becoming less of a joke.
I always carry my phone in my pocket now when I am out and about in case I have to call for help!!
I remember when he came out with the black eye during #KateGate, everyone was saying Will started beating up all the family members 😭😭 What is this guy doing that giving himself first black eye and now torn ligament? Does he not know how to garden? My mother did gardening for years, I don’t remember her getting injured like that.
You’re right. Just what kind of gardening gives you those types of injuries? Is gardening a word used in place of something different that happened.
Anything involving heights and ladders. Pruning trees and hedges for example.
Pulling hard to get a plant out of the ground then it gives all of a sudden & smacks you in the face.
What kind of injury can you get gardening? Oh my god, you can’t be serious?! I just did a number on my wrist the other day, possibly a torn ligament (i see an Orthopedist tomorrow), and I was in the BATHTUB!
We don’t know either injury was from gardening, these people are spitballing, they don’t know his home life. And ‘suspected’ torn ligament’? What is wrong with the health care over there? No imaging available for Sir Tim? The PoW doesn’t get biopsy results for six weeks? 🙄
Different imaging sees different things and in my case, while an x-ray showed no evident fracture, I was told that better imaging will occur when the swelling goes down. I injured my wrist on Sunday evening, saw my doctor and had an x-ray on Monday and will see an Orthopedist tomorrow, Thursday. I don’t think that delay is unusual.
I’ve gardened for years and I managed to step on a rake which came up and hit me in the face recently. Didn’t get a black eye but got a bruise on my forehead. It’s called getting old. I forgot to turn it the safe way round.
When I was in my mid-sixties I tried to pull a metal stake out of the ground that had been holding up a tree I’d planted the summer before. I thought it would pop out of the ground easily. I was wrong. I pulled some rib ligaments and developed “slipped rib syndrome” and it was bloody painful, for weeks. I’ve hurt my back from lugging heavy bags of topsoil. He may very well have torn a ligament in his shoulder for all we know. The point is, gardening isn’t just carrying a sweet little trowel around and deadheading roses, it can be a tough workout.
@Jaded, that sounds painful. My mother is mostly planting vegetables and some roses. We don’t know what kind of work Tim is doing on the grounds, of course. I would think someone at his age would do more light work, since he is doing it as a hobby I assume.
It’s really easy to twist an ankle and injure a ligament in the garden. Also there are often short fences that you think you can easily step over but then you misjudge due to your bifocals and down you go.
Why are this non-entity gallivanting round the world on the taxpayer’s pennies with nary a complain while people bitch and moan about the couple in America that costs those same taxpayers nothing?
🎯
Who the hell cares about old white racist grifters???
You betta preach! 🙋🏾
They have no choice about being old and white. It’s the passage of time and genetics. I’m not sure why those characteristics are being used pejoratively. I say that as a lifelong U.K. Republican who doesn’t want royals playing any role in public life.
You live long enough and wearing the wrong shoes, wearing ill-fitting clothes, carrying loose items, moving wrong, getting in and out of the bath, walking up inclines/stairs, not wearing non-slip socks/shoes around the house, failing to secure rugs or organize clutter or have any number of medical conditions/thin skin due to aging and sun exposure or take blood thinners and a mishap can happen in a heartbeat. A mishap/fall/minor injury a year is actually a low average for most elderly/middle aged people I know, but brain damage from an accident involving a horse should have been taken seriously by the family and her schedule should have been scaled back so she could heal from the concussion properly. Anne should not be working constantly to cover for a dud heir who can only show up when he can day drink, go zoom, zoom or watch a sporting event.
Yes to all of this.
As someone slightly older than Princess Anne, I agree as well, I fell down a step the other day, the light was off and I thought I was at the bottom, no idea why I thought that. Nothing broken, thankfully,
I’m only 59 and this past summer I pulled something in my back when I tried to help my daughter close the zipper on a huge overstuffed suitcase. It hurt like Hell for about five days. I have no idea exactly how the injury occurred but I know it happened because of that damned suitcase.
Too old to gallivant around the globe? Booze or dementia?
These two have had the best healthcare (unlike their fellow countrymen), diet and both are quite active and fit — neither smoke that we know of.
Perhaps we should strive not to be quite so ageist.
The Tindalls are busy gallivanting all over the Gold Coast of Australia, who knows what Peter is doing.