‘i’m reading the news from my front room’

It was the Stanley Tucci video on Instagram that sent me over the edge. The way he held a silver cocktail shaker, tipped the ice into the glass and pressed the negroni into his wife’s hand with those come-to-bed eyes. Afterwards I roamed around the John Lewis website, yet couldn’t locate the section where

I thought I had plenty of time to make the most of my last few child-free weeks before my due date at the end of June. There was a baby shower to plan, engagement celebrations, a house move, long Sunday afternoons browsing John Lewis’s nursery department and new mum friends to make at NCT classes. My fiancé Ben and I were even going to squeeze in that ‘babymoon’ we’d heard so much about – a last couple’s holiday before we became a three-piece.

Turns out the universe had other plans for us. The Prime Minister’s first daily coronavirus update that Monday night in March would change my world beyond recognition. After advising against unnecessary travel, he then declared pregnant women among the most at risk from COVID-19. I was suddenly in the vulnerable category.

And here I am today in the same front room with a whole new reality. As a news presenter for Sky, I’ve swapped a fancy state-of-the-art TV studio for a home broadcast kit and camera that I’ve managed to set up so that it crops out my messy kitchen. Now I am not just a journalist but a camera operator, sound engineer, lighting director, hair and make-up artist and – hardest of all – tech support.

The extra challenge is sharing a workspace with Ben. He runs his businesses from the computer next to my homemade studio and we fight each morning over who gets to use the