Politically incorrect as it can now be, a lot of little girls want to be Kate Middleton—or any unspecified princess, really—when they grow up. Hell, I’m an adult, and personally, I still want to be Kate Middleton when I grow up. But the sweet irony is that Kate Middleton herself, veritable princess and world-famous former commoner, secretly dreams of returning to a simpler station in life.
On a trip to Cornwall, England, this week, Kate told a group of teenage farmers that “she’d secretly like to be a young farmer” herself, according to People, and that she scratches her agrarian itch by tilling the land—or at the very least taking constitutional post-crumpet walks with Prince George and Princess Charlotte at the family’s country estate in Norfolk.
“She's been teaching George the difference between barley and wheat and everything they grow on the farm there,” said 15-year-old Bea Hodge, of the Wadebridge Young Farmers, after visiting with Kate. “She wants the children to learn all about farming and the apples in their orchard.”
Picturing: a real-life adaptation of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie’s The Simple Life but with more Barbour jackets. Of course, Kate already has the down-to-earth (for a princess) schtick down, re-wearing her outfits numerous times like the rest of us. In fact, while in Cornwall, she shocked the nation by wearing $29 Gap printed trousers! And the draws of country life are clear: On one hand, for Kate, there’s no paparazzi, curtsying, or mandatory pantyhose if she entered royal witness protection and resurfaced as a common farmer. On the other: hard labor, ruined manicures, no more Mario Testino shoots. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the Kensington Palace fence.