A sight to make us mums sigh with envy

First of all, let me say how delighted i am for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the safe arrival of t heir baby girl. Any newborn is a cause for celebration, but there’s something especially serendipitous about having one of each, a boy and a girl. ‘the set’, as they say.

then again, i would expect nothing else from Kate.

Because whatever your views on the royal Family (i’m a big fan, but there are many who are not, including a friend of mine who, when the news was announced, remarked darkly: ‘Another child born to grow up at the expense of the taxpayer’), no one could argue that Kate Middleton has turned out to be the most perfect of royal spouses.

Not only does she produce a male firstborn of such utter deliciousness that even the most hardened republicans can’t help letting out an involuntary ‘aahh’ at the sight of his golden hair, chubby thighs and pillow cheeks, she then follows up with a peachy little Princess who, judging by the pictures, verily sailed into the world, causing barely a furrow in the royal brow.

i, too, am the mother of a taurean princess, who turns 12 this week. But mine looked nothing like Kate’s cherubic offering just hours after taking her first breath.

She WAs puce for a week, having got herself stuck the wrong way up. she then spent the next few months howling, leaving her father and i in no doubt as to the unsatisfactory nature of our parenting skills (in truth, this has not changed much).

Meanwhile, i looked as if i’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, having finished up after a long and fruitless labour with an emergency Caesarean. i could have no more faced a bank of photographers than danced the can-can at the Moulin rouge.

But that sort of thing would never happen to the Duchess of Cambridge. Quite apart from the vulgarity of it all, it would be unprofessional. All her life the Duchess has been in training for her role as royal consort. Now that she’s got it, the birth of the next generation of Windsors is her sworn and solemn duty. A duty that, it has to be said, she fulfils with the utmost grace and charm.

some people may see her as a saccharine figure, almost Disneylike in her physical perfection and manifest ability to charm the birds from the trees. But i disagree.

this is a woman with a core of steel, a highly driven Duchess who means business. Do not be fooled by her sweet smile and swishy hair: that girl has the zeal and tireless work ethic of a Calvinist preacher.

how else could she possibly appear, serene yet elegant, barely hours after experiencing a process that leaves most women if not shellshocked then at the very least disinclined to move from their bed — let alone apply a full face of make-up, submit to a blow dry and struggle into a dress as stylish as it is impractical (white and yellow, with a newborn?)

Add the high heels (no swollen ankles for Kate) and her trademark American tan tights (i pray for her sake they were hold-ups, not the full Lycra gusset) and one has to hand it to her: that’s one classy lady.

i can only hope that, job done, she gets the chance to kick back, slip into something more comfortable — maybe an old grey snoopy t-shirt and a pair of faded tracksuit bottoms — and relax in the comfort of her and Will’s starter stately home in Norfolk eating nothing but Oreos for the next few weeks.

she’d certainly be entitled to. But i doubt whether she will.