There has naturally been a great deal of excitement over the recent meeting between Queen Elizabeth and Camilla Parker Bowles, consort of Prince Charles. As most of you are painfully aware, the queen had previously not spoken to CPB (as we in the trade call her) for 14 years, and now the floodgates of speculation have opened as to whether or not Charles and Camilla will eventually marry, become King and Queen of England and make Britain great once again.
If you think that is a lot to read into a lunch-time chat, you clearly do not understand our job as royal correspondents. The breakthrough, as the Times rightly called it, came last Saturday, when the queen finally met her eldest son's long-term mistress at a lunchtime barbecue at Highgrove, given by the Prince and CPB for the birthday of former King Constantine of the Hellenes, a close friend and distant relative of the British royal family.
The party was attended by a glittering raft of European royalty, including the kings of Norway and Spain, along with the queens of Denmark and the Netherlands. According to the Times, one "significant absentee" was the Duke of Edinburgh, who pleaded a prior arrangement but is thought to be less tolerant of his son's relationship than the queen has now become.
I have to say that this latter observation is way off the mark. I myself attended the Highgrove proceedings last Saturday, and the first thing I picked up was that the Duke of Edinburgh was absent simply because he is less tolerant of barbecues than the queen has now become. In fact, he abhors them.
However, the queen's presence was rightly seen as highly significant. Her majesty has sensibly kept out of the recent row in Britain over elitism, but it is widely known that she had to choose between attending the barbecue - an informal event featuring paper napkins and finger food - and a sit-down lunch for 36 in Buckingham Palace to mark last Saturday as being, well, last Saturday.
The duke was happy enough to stay home and entertain the guests. He is well known for his view that the outdoors are for sports, and not for eating.
The queen has a more up-to-date approach. In recent years, she has attended a number of marquee parties, which gradually prepared her for her very first barbecue, which took place this time last year at Balmoral, carefully scheduled for a Sunday afternoon between the Garter Day ceremonies at Windsor and the Royal Ascot race meeting.
To the great relief of all last Saturday, the sun shone brightly for the latest royal barbecue, though the queen chose to digest her slightly burnt cocktail sausages while seated under a large parasol.
In what was seen as a significant moment in the repairing of diplomatic bridges between Britain and Argentina, her majesty also sipped a pina colada, though some royal observers among us noted that the queen mother rather pointedly stuck to her own favourite beverage, a double-strength Gordon's gin and tonic.
Prince Charles himself prepared and served the first course in rather charming paper cups. This was his delightful version of the Spanish dish, gazpacho, made with tomatoes, peppers and other ingredients from his own organic garden, and chilled for two hours. The selection of this starter was a clear indication that the House of Windsor has now quite forgotten its minor rift with the Spanish monarchy last year when the Duke of Edinburgh innocently described all Spaniards as "greasy dagoes".
The queen herself amused everybody present when she asked Charles if his gazpacho was to be the new Windsor soup. We laughed brightly at this, the moment the royal press secretary advised us to.
Meanwhile, the crucial conversation between her majesty and Prince Charles's close friend took place halfway through the barbecue when Camilla was biting into a delicious pork rib. Queen Elizabeth kindly affected not to notice that a large piece of pork was stuck between Camilla's teeth, and that the honey-and-orange marinade was dripping down her chin. She simply asked Camilla to "look after my boy", Camilla gave an affirmatory "aarghmm", narrowly avoiding choking, and that was that.
The queen spent the rest of the afternoon enthusiastically toasting pink marshmallows on the barbecue. Some of my royal correspondent colleagues believe she was sending a message to Britain's gay population, but I understand that message is not due to be delivered until the Balmoral Duck Shoot Breakfast after the Windsor Castle Ball but before the annual Highgrove Midsummer Jamboree.