Looking tanned and relaxed, the surprise video appearance by the Prince and Princess of Wales at the weekend to thank Britain’s Olympic heroes was the summer lift that all royal watchers needed. With the extended family largely now on holiday at Balmoral and elsewhere, public appearances will be few and far between until well into September. And few could fail to have been struck by just how happy William and Catherine looked after what one friend describes as the “toughest year of their lives together”.
That’s not to say, as the princess herself so openly put it recently, that she is “out of the woods” yet. Her preventative chemotherapy treatment continues over the summer – and possibly even beyond – while her recovery will be ongoing for many months to come once this is concluded, I understand. She will continue to work privately and engage publicly as and when she can.
Kensington Palace hopes to provide guidance at some point in the future about what a return to “a more regular workload” might look like. But it is important to stress that they are absolutely “not at that stage yet”, according to one royal insider. Asked if the Princess’s fourth public appearance (in person and on video) of the year signalled a return to royal duties, a source said firmly: “We are not there yet.
When we last heard from her ahead of Trooping the Colour, she said her treatment was going on into the summer and that’s what’s happening. “It’s been a rough, rou.