Kathleen had her own New Year party on 1st January 1953, a dozen guests in all: the Barbirollis, Gerald Moores, Norman Allins, Ormerods, Win, Bernie and herself. As ever, and in all modesty, she considered herself ‘very spoiled’ whenever she was the centre of attention, whether because of her failing health or because she was now receiving ‘hundreds of messages’ congratulating her on the CBE award. Rehearsals for Orpheus, more plentiful and necessary in this work because of the inclusion of a ballet, began in earnest on 2nd January. At the end of the first week of the new year she caught a cold, which forced her to cancel recording sessions of music by Brahms (the Four Serious Songs and the Alto Rhapsody), but the visits to hospital, the X-rays and the increasing pain continued. Her cold cleared up in time for her broadcast recital with Ernest Lush on 12th January of music by three living British composers, Howard Ferguson, Edmund Rubbra and William Wordsworth, though it was not transmitted until 4th April and proved to be her last recording. The song recital planned for Scarborough's Central Hall with Gerald Moore accompanying on 14th January was cancelled and she never left London again. Her last appearance outside the capital had been a month earlier, on 11th December 1952 for a recital accompanied by Moore. The wheel had come full circle, for it took place appropriately enough at Central Hall in the city of Carlisle, from where she had moved south to start her career ten years earlier almost to the day. This time, no longer having a home at 23 Windermere Road, she stayed at the Red Lion Hotel.

There were ten visits to hospital throughout the month of January, interspersed with rehearsals for Orpheus, which opened on 3rd February to rapturous acclaim. Barbirolli, Win, Bernie and her doctors continued to marvel at her determination to keep going despite the daily negotiation of the staircases leading from her Frognal flat down to the road, the treacherously icy pavements she had to negotiate to and from taxis, the flights of stairs to and from rehearsal rooms or the stage at Covent Garden, all of which placed an extra burden on her increasingly weak condition.