I immediately recognized this reply. It's obviously from Belgium, and has the name of Queen Paola's residence, so I know it's from her. Queen Paola is King Philippe's mother. This is the 4th time I've written and gotten a reply from Queen Paola.
What is interesting to note is each of the envelopes from her have been slightly different. They have all had her purple crown. But the crowns have been varying sizes, sometimes on the back, or front on the envelope. And sometimes they have included the name of the royal residence.
The envelopes themselves have been different colours and had different color linings on the inside. Each reply has been a little different as well.
I had written to Queen Paola (age 79) earlier this month, after she had fallen, fractured her spine and was admitted to the hospital. She was there for about a week, and is now resting at home. She will have months of rehabilitation.
The note is written in French and translates to, "8 January 2017. Her Majesty Queen Paola was very touched by your kind wishes for a speedy recovery. The Queen thanks you very warmly."
I had sent my letter on January 5th, so it took 2.5 week to get a reply, which is one of the fastest replies I have gotten from Belgium.
I did find the date on the reply interesting. When royals make up cards like this to send out to people, they usually either include no date, include just the month and year, or use the date of the occasion people are writing for (e.g. birthday). This way you don't have a problem of the date on the card being off from the date they send the reply, which sometimes can be weeks or even a month or two. In this case it was 11 days.
As far as the significance of January 8th: Queen Paola was released from the hospital on January 3rd, but we didn't find out till January 8th. So maybe it comes from that, or maybe that was just when her secretary was typing up the card. Not a big deal, I just find things like this interesting.
