Wellwishers turned out to see the Queen Mother as she attended morning service at Crathie parish church near Balmoral.
They greeted the 101-year-old as she arrived at the kirk with the Queen and Prince Philip on Sunday.
Dressed in turquoise with a matching hat, she arrived in a black Daimler limousine and walked the short distance to the church entrance.
There had been speculation over the Queen Mother's health after she was diagnosed as suffering from anaemia shortly before her birthday last month.
She underwent a blood transfusion last month, and last Saturday she missed the Braemar Highland gathering when she attended Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for hospital tests.
However, she was well enough to join members of the Royal Family for the traditional Sunday church service the following day.
The Queen Mother attended church again this Sunday and is understood to be doing all the usual things she does while at Birkhall on the Queen's Balmoral estate.
These include entertaining house guests and hosting lunch and dinner parties.
Her medical condition is still being monitored and it remains to be seen whether she will need further treatment for anaemia.
However, her aides said the Queen Mother was well - and was enjoying her Highland holiday.
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'Amused' Queen Mother scotches death rumours(UK Times)
BY HELEN STUDD
QUEEN Elizabeth the Queen Mother has been “amused” by rumours of her demise, a member of her staff said yesterday — so amused that she made a point of proving them wrong by turning out for church with her family near Balmoral. “She is determined to show her public that they were 100 per cent untrue,” the staff member said.
Although looking frail, the Queen Mother smiled and waved to wellwishers who gathered in the mist and rain outside Crathie Kirk. Clutching a walking stick in her right hand and the handrail in her left she waved aside offers of support and climbed the steps to a side entrance unaided. She was still smiling when she left the church an hour later and waved enthusiastically from her Daimler.
The rumours had spread last week after the Daily Mail reported that the Prince of Wales had cancelled a holiday with Camilla Parker Bowles because he was so concerned about his grandmother. They reached such a pitch that Buckingham Palace had to reassure inquirers that she was in good heart and enjoying her holiday.
Less than two months ago the Queen Mother had anaemia and underwent a blood transfusion. Her aides said that she was doing “remarkably well for a woman of such a great age”. She has spent the past week entertaining guests at her Birkhall residence on the Balmoral estate.
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Brown's Diana role 'after funeral snub'(Uk Times)
BY DOMINIC KENNEDY
GORDON BROWN was given the job of choosing Britain’s official memorial for Diana, Princess of Wales, to soothe his wrath at failing to receive an invitation to her funeral.
Tony Blair, John Prescott and Robin Cook were all invited to Westminster Abbey but nobody remembered to ask the Chancellor.
To placate the disgruntled Mr Brown and to restore peace to the newly elected Labour administration in Downing Street, the Prime Minister created a new committee and asked the Chancellor to chair it.
A source told The Times: “Gordon was stomping around in a sulk. It got so bad that Blair had to think of something to calm him down. Blair felt it terribly important, especially at that time, to keep Gordon on board or the consequences were too terrible to ponder.”
The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Committee is still staffed by civil servants at the Treasury although its workload is so small that it has no full-time employees.
The episode is disclosed by James Naughtie in his book The Rivals, an account of the feud between Mr Blair and Mr Brown.
The Princess’s funeral was organised with help from Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister’s spokesman, but there is no suggestion he arranged for Mr Brown to be left off the invitation list. Mr Cook, a rival of the Chancellor since their youth, was personally invited by the Spencer family because of his long conversations with the Princess about eliminating landmines.
According to Mr Naughtie’s account, Mr Brown was “furiously offended, possibly because Cook — his long-time enemy — appeared to be pulling rank. Downing Street had to douse his anger for the two days leading up to the funeral. One of those close to the row says it was fought with a passion which Blair found puzzling.”
The creation of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Committee seemed superfluous, since a separate Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund had been started on September 2, 1997, only two days after her death.
Few in the Cabinet would have wanted that chairmanship but Mr Brown seemed mollified at the time, announcing in December 1997: “Diana, Princess of Wales, was greatly loved and I consider it an honour to have been asked by the Prime Minister to chair this important committee.”
The memorial committee has so far created a playground, a parkland walk, a commemorative coin, specialised children’s nursing teams and a children’s bravery award.
Its latest, and probably final, act is to begin searching for a designer to produce a Diana fountain in Hyde Park.
The Treasury said yesterday: “It Is pretty much finished its work now. There are a couple of people who provide occasional secretariat staff and draft letters.
“It Is there to make recommendations for commemorative projects which were going to be paid for by the taxpayer. There is a clear logic in asking the Chancellor, as a senior member of the Government, to chair that committee.”
A Downing Street spokesman said: “This is just more books being overwritten and overtrivialising.”
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