Kate Middleton, The Duchess of Cambridge begin her tour to launch a survey for Early Years Initiative as a patron.
The survey of five questions is aimed at building a national conversation on the early years initiative that will ultimately help bring about positive, lasting change for generations to come. Running for a month from 21 January to 21 February, it will give people across the UK an opportunity to provide their views on raising the next generation.
Her first stop was a baby sensory class at the Ely and Careau Children’s Centre in Welsh Capital after making a visit to Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum a day before.
The Ely and Careau Children’s center is set up to provide high-quality early years education, childcare support services to children and their families, support for children with special needs and provision of adult education. The center also hosts breakfast, plays, after-school clubs and holiday clubs. As part of their partners, they also have health visitors, speech and language therapists and partners such as Sure Start and Language and Play. The Salvation Army and Barnardo’s are part of the community partners.
In a conversation, the Duches recounted memories of her early motherhood days saying:
“It’s nice to be back in Wales! I was chatting to some of the mums earlier, It was the first year and I’d just had Goerge – William was still working with Search and Rescue and we came up here and I had a tiny tiny baby in the middle of Anglesey it was so isolated, so cut off. I didn’t have any family around and he was doing night shifts. If only I had had a centre like this.”
The Duchess also shared a moment with 11-month-old Eleanor Logue, who was happily covering herself in cooked spaghetti as mum Rhi, 29, talked about how much support she gets from other parents there.
“You can come here and tell people, ‘I haven’t slept,'” said Rhi.“And everyone else is like, ‘I haven’t either!'”Kate laughed and said: “It normalises it. No one is going to judge you for it. And it’s a social thing for you.”
In response Rhi said:
“We talked about postnatal depression and how hard it is to have a kid and how important centres like this are. I would have been in such a dark place without it. It’s lovely to see her in a place like Ely. It’s such a deprived area and there have been so many funding cuts. Sometimes you are scared to walk the streets, but coming here you feel safe. You don’t feel like you are going to get mugged.”
The Duchess made new animal friends as she was introduced to resident guinea pigs Willow and Bella in a wooden hut. She crouched down to stroke the black-and-white pet, Willow, telling the children:
“I had guinea pigs when I was little. I think your nursery is the best. She’s so soft, isn’t she?”As she watched the children feed them carrots and sprouts, Kate joked: “I did not know that guinea pigs liked Brussels Sprouts! These guinea pigs are a lot quieter than the ones I had at home!”
More photos bellow:
The Duchess of Cambridge was beautifully donned in a camel coat by Massimo Duttiwaves, a black turtleneck, brown printed-pleated skirt and black boots. She let her hair down in waves and added a gold plated necklace to the mix.
Photos ⒸGetty Images
