Well, she certainly is a dutiful daughter-in-law: Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, has announced that she will usher in her 50th birthday on Jan. 20 by attending public engagements with her husband Prince Edward in support of Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee Trust and the charity Tomorrow's People.
The royal couple are set to first visit Tomorrow's People Social Enterprises, a national employment charity which helps disadvantaged adults and young people land a job. The royal, who is a patron of the organization, will be on hand to meet staff and supporters while they work in the flower stall, coffee shop and market garden.
Thereafter, Sophie and Edward will meet school children and tour the different enterprises, which offer training young people aiming to get work. Of course, her birthday will not be forgotten, as the royal will be presented with a birthday cake by a staff member who now works in a local bakery and flowers from the charity's flower stall.
The couple will then head to The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to see demonstrations of the Avoidable Blindness Programme which is a part of The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust. Once there, they intend to meet with students and participate in a presentation of "Peek", a portable eye examination kit which turns a smart phone into a comprehensive eye exam tool that takes high resolution images of the eye.
It's no surprise that Sophie would mark her big day helping her mother-in-law, as the Countess is quite the fan of the Queen. She recently told Harper's Bazaar: "The Queen would never let anybody down, and that means you feel the same way. Because there's that part of her which I'm sure is like the proverbial stick of rock: if you cut her, the word 'service' would just run through her."