The Princess’s shopping outing is just the latest in the signs she is continuing her recovery. Insiders previously told MailOnline that she has already been attending sporting fixtures, doing the school drop off and taking the children to play dates. Kate is thought to be prioritising family this year, with a source close to the Waleses telling People: ‘Life-threatening illnesses bring a reconsideration of priorities.
She and William have always made it clear that family is the most important thing.’ Primarily, this appears to suggest Catherine will like spent more time at home in Adelaide Cottage and Amner Hall with Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis – a brief glimpse of which Catherine shared in a highly personal home video marking the end of her chemotherapy treatment.
Elsewhere, she and Prince William reportedly took their children on a private ski trip earlier this month. The Prince and Princess of Wales, along with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, are thought to have flown out to the Alps for a ‘quiet break’ shortly after Christmas for a few days. The Mail on Sunday reported the family were seen enjoying a break from skiing at a mountaintop restaurant which ‘has panoramic views of snow-covered peaks.’ Sources described it as a ‘Middleton family knees-up’ with Kate’s brother James and his wife Alizee joining the Wales’s for the holiday. The insider explained, ‘Everyone seemed to be really happy. There were no airs and graces and actually they seemed like any normal family enjoying a ski break. There were lots of laughs and the children were very polite…Kate looked like she was having a lovely time.’
Despite the outings, there have been whispers from the palace – from insiders, from friends, from Catherine herself – that things will be different as she makes her managed return to public duties. The future queen ‘simply won’t be going back to work in the same way as before’ her diagnosis, those close to her told Rebecca English for MailOnline. ’It’s impossible to go through that kind of trauma and not to be changed as a person.’ Palace sources speaking to People magazine agreed: You can’t go through something like that and come out the other side unchanged. She is a different person now.’
