Princess Kate's powerful words have made me realise 1 thing about cancer recovery

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The first step to all this, as Princess Kate says, is to find a sense of hope in the darkest of times. For me this will start with planting two bulbs in pots on my windowsill…

The easiest days to achieve this are hospital days when I'm out early for a nerve-wracking scan, a blood test, or a morning spent having chemotherapy. The difficult days are when the days become nights not long past 4pm, when it's really cold and the rain covers you like a blanket soaked in misery.

On those days it's easier to sit inside and forget that resolutions exist, and maybe only venture outside to put the bins out. On those days I'll have the words that Princess Kate said this week about nature and her cancer journey firmly in my mind.

She's spot on when she says there are good days and bad days. And she's precisely right when she flags just how important it is to get outside.

In my bit of the world it's difficult to find a great expanse of nature, as my town is famed more for knife crime and tower blocks than wooded groves and babbling brooks.

But this just means that instead of being vague about going outside at least once a day, maybe next year a resolution should be to embrace the small wonders of the natural world.

There's a tree in my street which is packed full of little birds as spring arrives. I could spend a few moments there listening to them sing.

There's a delightful display of purple flowers near the entrance to my cancer hospital. If I got an earlier train I could spend more time looking at them instead of having to rush past for my first appointment of the day.

There's an allotment near the bus stop I stand at after I've got scan results and need to work out what to do with the rest of my day. I'm usually preoccupied with my thoughts but looking at the people digging might prove to be a nice distraction.

The differing colours of leaves as they fall to the ground and become partly a street blanket remind me of my connection to the natural world. They are dying but after them will come new life.

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