Mucking in at the community hall in the village of Tobermory, Kate asked for tips on carpentry and beekeeping and revealed the strange Christmas present when the royal couple were shown some of the refurbishment work, meeting the painter, carpenter and volunteers before getting involved in the action themselves.
Shown a small work station, where Tom Nelson was making a new ‘surround’ for the community food bank fridge with wooden tiles on its roof, the Prince and Princess agreed to use a nail gun to add their own.
He fired several nails successfully before handing it over to his wife, advising her not to pull the trigger then and there “otherwise our trip will be remembered for all the wrong reasons”.
Crouching down and adding her tiles matter-of-factly, the Princess was heard to say “I’ve been given a chainsaw” for Christmas. Banjo, a carpenter admiring her work, told William: “What can’t she do!”. William, acknowledging his wife’s prowess at trying things out on public engagements, replied: “That always happens.”
Shown a small work station, where Tom Nelson was making a new ‘surround’ for the community food bank fridge with wooden tiles on its roof, the Prince and Princess agreed to use a nail gun to add their own.
He fired several nails successfully before handing it over to his wife, advising her not to pull the trigger then and there “otherwise our trip will be remembered for all the wrong reasons”.
Crouching down and adding her tiles matter-of-factly, the Princess was heard to say “I’ve been given a chainsaw” for Christmas. Banjo, a carpenter admiring her work, told William: “What can’t she do!”. William, acknowledging his wife’s prowess at trying things out on public engagements, replied: “That always happens.”
Later during the trip, Kate, who has previously told how nature became her family’s ‘sanctuary’ after her diagnosis and during chemotherapy last year, told a local beekeeper how she was “desperate for any tips” for her new hobby.
The princess spent so long speaking to Sheila Barnard at a pop up market in the village of Tobermory on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, that her husband Prince William jokingly suggested he was going to stage an intervention.
Moving along several stall holders from local businesses, William and Kate – known as the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay when in Scotland, stopped to talk to Sheila and her husband Tim who have been keeping bees for more than 30 years.
Sheila told the princess how their nine colonies of the native black bee are the only variety that survive over 5 degrees during the harsh winters on the island.
Kate said: “This is my summer project, I’ve only just started. At our home in Norfolk, I’m not there much during term time but during the summer I am hoping to really immerse myself in the process. I find it absolutely fascinating. I’ll have to take your number for some tips!”
As Kate asked Sheila “what sort of advice would you have for a novice, I’m desperate for any tips”, William leant in and joked to his wife: “This sounds like a conversation that could go on for a while so you’ll have to take Sheila’s number.”