As I said yesterday, the clean-up on the Princess of Wales’s visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital began immediately, practically while she was still meeting with cancer patients and saying some truly bizarre things. In addition to her statements about “recognizing beeps” and craving sunlight, and she also said that she did not use a cold cap, which prevents hair loss for many cancer patients. Instead of devoting a lot of energy to Kate’s frankly weird statements, the British media went into overdrive to keensplain how Kate’s visit was a one-off (specifically timed to try to steal the Duchess of Sussex’s thunder), and that Kate would absolutely not be back to work in any meaningful way for a while. Becky English at the Mail got that exclusive, and so did Kate Mansey at the Times. Some highlights from the Times piece:

Kate was “smuggled in” to the hospital? When she walked under the ornate archway at the Royal Marsden, the Princess of Wales appeared to stop for a moment, glance up at the building and take stock. Kate, 43, was there to thank doctors, meet patients and, later, announce that she is now in remission from cancer. The specialist cancer centre in Chelsea is all too familiar to the princess because this was where she was smuggled in for chemotherapy treatment.

Kate’s new normal: Sources close to Kate point to two words in her statement on Tuesday that were doing some heavy lifting, that this was the: “new normal”. But what does that look like for a family that, for centuries, has been resolutely sticking to the old normal, for whom the old normal was their bread and butter, their very raison d’être? First of all, it means that her royal engagements post-treatment have been gradual and will continue as such. The granting of royal warrants, for example, from the Prince and Princess of Wales will only come when the couple is ready to do so.

Kate’s life will never be the same, and neither will her schedule: None of this should truly come as a surprise because Kate has told the public, repeatedly, that cancer has changed her life dramatically. Even though she is back on the road to health, her written statements read as if she is spelling it out to everyone very slowly and in words that we can all understand that, for her, life will never be the same again. Why would you go through the year she’s had just to run straight back to work, palming your three children off on round-the-clock nannies so that you can zip around the country on an old-fashioned royal ribbon-cutting parade? It’s not going to happen.

Kate is savoring her kids’ pre-prep school days: In two years George will be going up to secondary school, with Kate’s alma mater Marlborough College reportedly the leading choice for the Waleses. Why wouldn’t Kate want to savour every moment of her children in their prep school years? She has shown a new delight in the minutiae of her young family’s daily life, details of which she shares in letters to the King. She finds joy in family time, but also the day-to-day: the school drop-offs and the pick-ups, the homework dilemmas and the playground friendship dramas. No doubt she feels a renewed sense of gratitude that she can be there for them when they need her while they’re still young.

William is not using Kate’s illness as an excuse to be lazy! Palace sources will urge that Kate’s illness is not being used by William as an excuse to slack off or do less. After all, he knows the “big job” is just a heartbeat away. But they say that when he embraces a project, he does it wholeheartedly and in a way that is designed to have a lasting impact.

[From The Times]

While I can’t pinpoint it, I’ve been getting a vibe this week that the British media is annoyed. They’re not ready to burn it all down, and clearly, they’re happy that Kate is petty and conceited enough to try to steal Meghan’s thunder (With Love, Meghan was originally supposed to be released on Wednesday). There’s a sense of… “you have to give us more than this.” They’re working their asses off trying to cover her ass. The part about “William isn’t slacking off” is hilarious too, because he clearly has been slacking off for the past year, and we’ve been told repeatedly that he has every right to! It just feels like the Waleses are on really shaky ground, like this is a house of cards that everyone is trying to keep standing.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.