Carole Middleton gave an interview to Good Housekeeping UK back in January, apparently. How was she to know that the cover and cover interview would come out in the middle of a particularly toxic royal media cycle? So she called up several media outlets to let them know that she, the Queen of the nation, would not bother to promote this magazine cover. And if that announcement happened to draw more attention to her Good Housekeeping cover, well, how was she to know? Poor Carole, so dignified and regal, she never puts a foot wrong! Good Housekeeping released some excerpts from the interview too:

What a typical day looks like at her company, Party Pieces. “The business has a CEO now, so I have the luxury of being able to focus on new ideas and how to grow, which is always an enjoyable challenge. We’re currently working on the very first range of Party Pieces own-brand tableware for children’s parties, and that is a real passion project. I’m still hands-on and love going to our warehouse and seeing where the orders are going. I have a wonderful team of people, some of whom have stayed with me since the early days.”

Life as a grandmother: As a grandmother to the children of daughters Catherine and Pippa, Carole describes herself as ‘hands on’. “I want to run down the hills, climb the trees and go through the tunnel at the playground,” she says. “As long as I am able to, that’s what I’ll be doing. I cook with them, I muck around dancing, we go on bike rides.”

Her work ethic: “I’m not someone to sit on the sofa for a long time. I have a lot of energy and enjoy my work. I grew up watching my parents, who both worked extremely hard. My father was a builder, and my mother worked part-time in a jewellery shop and later, would go to work in a factory. I remember them working hard to make ends meet and give us a lifestyle.”

[From Good Housekeeping UK]

The truth is, the devil works hard but Carole works harder. That’s always been the case – she not only ran a successful business for decades, she also raised three kids and, like an anxious mother out of a Jane Austen novel, she pushed her local Bucklebury beauties into the highest echelons of British society in an attempt to make “smart matches” for all of them. Being a social climber who is trying to throw her daughters in the paths of eligible, titled, rich men is a full-time occupation all on its own. The fact that she was running a business at the same time is crazy! Anyway, she’s the Kris Jenner of Britain and I’m actually saying that with respect. I just wish Carole’s kids had inherited her work ethic.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN.