Kate Garraway says family FaceTime her husband Derek Draper in hospital on birthdays but she doesn’t know if he hears

When asked how they celebrate special occasions without Derek, Kate shared: "It's very hard.

"There have been lots of them - each of our birthdays and Billy started secondary school last September, which was difficult without Derek.

"We'll set up FaceTime for birthdays and sing Happy Birthday and blow out candles. And we'll often set it up while we're having tea together, so he can hear the chatter."

Kate continued: "We don't know how much he can hear us, but it's got to be a familiar sound, hasn't it?

"We just keep thinking, 'He's here, he's alive, so he'll be with us for the next one'."

Elsewhere in the chat, Kate admitted she's struggled to cope looking after her two children alone.

She said: "I’m not sure I am coping! I honestly don’t know how single mums do it; it’s just so hard.

"A lot of the time I find myself thinking, ‘What would Derek say?’ and 'What would Derek do?'"

She added that she was being helped through the parenting side of things by her GMB co-star Ranvir Singh.

Kate explained: "I’m lucky that I’m being supported by lots of friends, too, and Ranvir has been really helpful because she’s been operating as a single mum since her son, Tushaan, was very little.

"I asked her, 'How do you do it?' and she said, 'You just have to accept that you can’t do everything.'"

Meanwhile, Kate recently revealed she was finally able to take her children to see their seriously ill dad in hospital for the first time at Christmas.

But after England was plunged into a new six-week lockdown earlier this month, all visits to see loved ones have been immediately halted.

Derek remains in intensive care and is now the country’s longest-fighting Covid-19 patient.