A surprise Zoom party ..then wed at last after virus cancelled us twice

me, and all our family and friends. He told me afterwards that it felt really special making that commitment in front of everyone.

In the summer, when weddings were allowed, we went back to the Bishop of Leeds to plan a real wedding again.

Our licence had expired so we had to get another – by this point our third!

We had a ceremony on August 8, just 10 of us in the village where I grew up in North Yorkshire.

We were so lucky. It was that period where you could actually go to bars and the weather was beautiful.

Everyone in the village was lovely about organising it.

Mum’s friends cleaned and dressed the church, collected flowers for confetti and stood at a distance to cheer us when we really came out. There’s a village tradition where they tie up the gates from the churchyard to the village green with ribbon and the bride and groom cut it so we did that too.

People were driving past beeping. It was the only wedding they had seen for months. At the hotel people gave us a standing ovation.

It was amazing and there was a lot less pressure because it was small, private and personal.

We’re still planning to have a party. As Tom says, we’ve got more time now to save up for booze and for a honeymoon!

Also, we’ve got a lot of annual leave because we’ve been working. It would be great to be able to get away somewhere maybe this summer, June or July.

The realisation that we weren’t going to be seeing our families for our first Christmas together as a married couple was really hard.

The second Covid-19 wave hit London early, in December, and we had to re-do our rotas and tell people they’d be working extra over Christmas.

The second wave has been more stressful. In the first wave, there was a feeling that this was unprecedented and a huge wave of support from the public.

There were amazing volunteers and huge camaraderie among all our teams.

That’s continued but everyone is so exhausted and it’s harder.

In the first peak Tom saw a massive drop in footfall, fewer people coming in with broken limbs because people were staying at home.

In the second wave on the first day there were 35 people who had broken their ankles or wrists – three times as many as normal.

People tell you they weren’t obeying the guidelines. You treat them anyway but it’s frustrating that they’re putting more weight on the system.

We both got our first doses of the vaccine before Christmas. We’d been looking forward to the vaccine for so long. Seeing the rollout in the NHS has given us great hope.

Even if it just reduces the severity of infections, cuts hospital admissions and deaths, it’s a massive thing. If lockdown has taught us one thing, it’s that family is what matters most.