Kate Garraway fought back tears on Good Morning Britain as she discussed how she and her family marked husband Derek Draper’s birthday over the weekend.

On Wednesday, Kate returned to GMB after a few days off, but admitted to co-presenter Adil Ray that it had been a “challenging” time for her, with Derek still in intensive care after contracting coronavirus earlier this year.

“I did a swap with Charlotte this week,” she said, explaining her absence for the first two shows of the week. “It was Derek’s birthday on Saturday as well, which was obviously a challenging one under the circumstances.

“We managed to FaceTime him and sing happy birthday, and we had a cake, which we had on FaceTime. So we tried to mark the moment.”

When Adil questioned whether it had been a difficult day for the couple’s two children, Kate told him: “It’s very challenging, they’re doing brilliantly with it, though.

“We managed to do it with Derek’s family as well, we managed to technically hook up and sing happy birthday and just hope that the love seeps through.”

She added that she’d received a rose bush as a present from fellow GMB star Charlotte Hawkins, pointing out that the specific flowers were called the “rose of hope”.

Becoming emotional, Kate added: “It actually came to flower on Saturday.”

Following Derek’s initial diagnosis, Kate took a number of months off from her presenting duties, but returned to GMB in July, explaining that while her husband was now “Covid-free”, the illness had caused a lot of serious damage to his body.

Last week, Kate spoke candidly about returning to work while Derek is still in hospital, admitting she found it all a “difficult balance”.

“I feel conscious of not [talking about it on air],” she said at the time. “I know everybody’s been so lovely, and is really concerned for him, and it’s difficult, isn’t it? Because there’s so many people out there with people who are sick, that you don’t want to talk about it on Good Morning Britain all the time because then it’s, like, not cheering up everybody that’s trying to cope with Covid.

“But on the other hand, last week when we were having fun and games, you feel almost bad, because you think ‘oh, I’m laughing and he’s still there’, you know? In a kind of minimally conscious state. And it’s a difficult balance.”

Good Morning Britain airs every weekday from 6am on ITV.