Queen Elizabeth looked relaxed as she attended her first official public engagement of the year.

Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth

The 90-year-old royal was seen arriving at her annual Women's Institute meeting in Sandringham, Norfolk after being plagued with a heavy cold over the festive period.

The members who attended the meeting at West Newton village hall were given a talk by historian Lucy Worsley earlier in the day.

Mary Relph, who watched as the Queen entered the meeting, said: "She looked lovely, she really did after her severe cold, I felt she looked lovely."

The Queen was last seen publicly at Sandringham Church a couple of weeks ago, where she was joined by her husband Prince Philip, grandson Prince William and his wife Duchess Catherine and her sister Pippa Middleton.

Meanwhile, the British monarch missed a church service on Christmas Day for the first time in 30 years. A spokesperson insisted her failure to attend was just "precautionary measure" and not a cause for concern.

They said at the time: "[It was] a precautionary measure but there was no sense of undue concern."

And in another statement a couple of weeks previous, the spokesperson added: "The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have heavy colds, and so have decided not to travel to Sandringham today."

At last year's Women's Institute meeting, the Queen dined with other members of the Institute and was gifted with a birthday cake, a tree and a plague to mark her 90th birthday.

Yvonne Browne, vice-president of the Institute's Norfolk group, said at the time: "We've bought her a sweet chestnut tree and a plaque for it. We presented her the plaque and a photograph of the tree.

"We had a little bit of a joke because when she went to the Albert Hall in London last year [for the Institute's 100th birthday] she had difficulty cutting the cake. I said to her, 'I hope you can cut this, Ma'am.' And the knife went in easily so that was good!"