Harry and Meghan are planning to take a six week sabbatical from royal duties from mid-November to focus on their family. Having worked through much of her maternity leave and carried out a busy and successful overseas tour to South Africa, Meghan will travel home to the United States for Thanksgiving, joined by Harry and baby Archie, according to the Sunday Times.
According to a royal source, “The Duke and Duchess have a full schedule of engagements and commitments until mid-November, after which they will be taking some much needed family time.”
The couple are expected to spend their first Christmas with their son Archie, who was born in May, with the Queen and other members of the Royal Family at Sandringham in Norfolk. But first it is understood they will fly to Los Angeles next month to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland.
The news comes as the Sussexes have revealed how they are struggling in the media spotlight, with Meghan saying she is “existing, not living.” In Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, which will air Sunday night on ABC in the States and ITV in the UK, both Harry and Meghan opened up to journalist Tom Bradby about the hardships of facing so much press scrutiny and how they would like to spend more time in Africa.
“The rest of our lives, especially our life's work will be predominantly focused on Africa, on conservation,” Harry said in the documentary, though he added that living there any time soon could be problematic. “I don't know where we could live in Africa at the moment. We've just come from Cape Town, that would be an amazing place for us to be able to to base ourselves, of course it would. But with all the problems that are going on there, I just don't see how we would be able to really make as much difference as we'd want to.”
Sources have previously told Vanity Fair that the couple plan to spend more time in Africa and would love to build a lodge in Botswana.
Speaking about making the documentary Bradby, who has known Harry for years, revealed he had spent time with the couple at their Windsor home before travelling to Africa with them, and said he believed the couple are “vulnerable and bruised.” Meghan also admitted to feeling vulnerable during her pregnancy and thanked Bradby for asking about how she was feeling. “Thank you for asking, because not many people have asked if I'm OK, but it's a very real thing to be going through behind the scenes,” she said.
Since the clip first aired #WeLoveYouMeghan has become a top trending topic on Instagram, with users sending personal messages of support. Describing Harry as “tired, even burnt out,” Bradby wrote in the Sunday Times, “I couldn’t quite shake a sense of sadness, too, at the powerful impression that this young family, happy in themselves, is struggling to adapt to life in the spotlight. Can you cope with this, I asked Meghan at the end. I don’t know, her demeanor seemed to suggest, I just don’t know. We are, she said, taking it one day at a time.”
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