A Prince and His Princess Arrive: Charles and Di

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Diana sometimes finds the tribal rites of the royal family heavy going. For years the holiday schedule has been an inflexible routine: Windsor at Christmas, Balmoral in the summer, a cruise aboard the Britannia to Scotland in August. The family is relentlessly outdoorsy; they like nothing better than to put on their macs and picnic in the chill air of the Scottish Highlands. After the meal, they all go tramping through the heather with a pack of pesky corgis nipping at their heels. Not exactly Diana's idea of a giggle. For her the royal sing-alongs with Princess Margaret plinking the ivories just do not compare with listening to Dire Straits on her trusty Walkman.

When Diana does manage to get out of the house on her own, she displays the friskiness of a boarding-school student on a weekend of freedom. At a recent charity ball in London, she wore a silver drop-dead, bare-backed, broad- shouldered gown. Instead of leaving at midnight like a proper Cinderella, as is the royal custom, she was still dancing at 2:30. A month later, while Charles was away, her sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale persuaded Diana to go to a country house ball in Leicestershire. The bachelors were too timid to ask her to dance. Exercising royal fiat, Diana grabbed one young man and said, "Come on, for goodness sake, let's dance." She did, until 4 a.m.

To combat the Balmoral Blues, some palace watchers suggest, Diana has followed a course of shopping therapy. Feeling low? Then just take a spin out to Harvey Nichols and buy a few Bruce Oldfields. "Fashion isn't my big thing," Diana insists. But during the first year of her marriage, when she was assembling a royal wardrobe, her clothes and accessories reportedly cost about $2,500 a week. For trips abroad she plots her outfitting like a general drawing up plans for battle, studying the slick fashion magazines, then huddling with favorite designers. She also practices a kind of guerrilla shopping. Dressed in jeans, she will slip out of the palace by 10, driving her red Ford Sierra with the obligatory detective next to her, and head for a favorite boutique for a quick try-on.

Practicality, not chic, is a royal consideration. "You'd be amazed what one has to worry about," she says. "You've got to put your arm out to get some flowers, so you can't have something too revealing, and you can't have hems too short because when you bend over, there are six children looking up your skirt." Diana has shifted from the rather frumpy, pastel suits of the engagement period to sleek, sophisticated ensembles and romantic hats. For evening wear she favors slinky numbers with daring back slits or fairy-like gossamer gowns. What is engaging about her sense of style is that she chooses clothes with a touch of wit, even if she occasionally looks like a fashion casualty. After years of seeing the Queen Mum parading around in hats that look as though a bird of paradise had expired on her head and the Queen looking like a dour librarian, even Diana's Di-sasters, as the tabloids call them, are refreshing.

Nor has Diana overlooked Charles, who has been given a minor make-over by his wife. She has spruced up his young-fogy image by getting him to wear brighter ties, striped shirts and less somber suits. She also persuaded him to allow her haircutter to give him a slightly longer, less plastered-down look that makes his ears look less prominent.