Just In: Kate Middleton Has a “Spring in Her Step” as She Returns to Annual Royal Events Like St. Patrick’s Day Parade…..Read More

The Princess of Wales was forced to miss the yearly occasion last year amid her cancer diagnosis.

Kate Middleton’s return to the Irish Guards’ annual St. Patrick’s Day parade—where she traditionally hands out shamrocks to soldiers—is the latest step in the Princess of Wales returning to royal duty after a tumultuous 2024.

Kate was forced to miss the March 17 event last year due to her cancer diagnosis, which was announced globally five days later. As the royals’ busy season begins to get underway—with the Chelsea Flower Show, Royal Ascot, Order of the Garter, and Trooping the Colour serving as yearly highlights—royal commentator Jennie Bond said that the future queen “will attend as many of the big events as she feels able,” per The Mirror.

As the anniversary of the video’s release approaches, Catherine will no doubt be reflecting on how far she has come since then and how much love and admiration from around the world has come her way,” Bond told The Mirror. “With the weather turning warmer and the day of her diagnosis becoming more distant, she appears to have a real spring in her step and joy in her heart to be alive and able to pick up some of the threads of her public life.”

Bond said that March 22—the day she announced her cancer publicly—“was one of those ‘oh my goodness’ moments that many of us will never forget,” Bond said, adding that shooting the clip “was probably one of the most courageous and difficult things she’s ever had to do.”

As evidenced in a video released about six months later on September 9—where Kate announced her chemotherapy treatment had ended—the marriage of Kate and Prince William “is a true love story, and the past year has probably made them a stronger couple,” Bond said.

“A crisis like this can make or break, and it seems certain to me that all they’ve been through in the past year or so has made what was already a happy marriage even more solid,” she added.