The Rugby Six Nations being with us again, this is the time of year when educational and other establishments get ready for visits from the Princess Royal.
As patron of the Scottish Rugby Union, her well-publicised visits to Murrayfield provide the perfect excuse for innumerable invitations to open this or that sometime in February.
Quick off the mark this year was Lauder College in Dunfermline, visited by HRH on Tuesday. It was a perfect opportunity to put the memories of Saturday’s Scotland-England clash behind her as she had the experience of a Scottish success story in February for a change.
HRH opened two state of the art facilities for, appropriately, the creative arts and technology. True to form on such occasions, she was followed around not just by the usual throng of admirers but by the unmistakable smell of fresh paint which, as is often said, the royals think is the normal aroma in all buildings and not just those housing student painters.
Crown Paints, of course.
