Kate Garraway reveals her unusual ‘therapy’ as she counts down to the day husband Derek is strong enough to go outside
KATE Garraway turns to her garden for “therapy” as she nurses her husband Derek Draper back to health.
The Good Morning Britain presenter, 54, is looking after Derek who has returned home following a year in hospital fighting off Covid and needs 24 hour care.
Posing on an outdoor lawn chair, wearing a flower crown and tucking her knees up to her chest, Kate revealed her garden was her “happy place”.
The mum-of-two was celebrating garden day and opened up to fans how she found solace in her yard.
“Happy @gardendayuk ! My garden is definitely my happy place & even though it’s not big or fancy I love being out there even if the weather isn’t perfect , because just being outside listening to the rain fall and the wind blow through the leaves is like therapy for me,” she captioned the post.
“I can’t wait for Derek to get stronger so can get him outside too as know it’ll be good for him.
“Admittedly he may not want to wear a gorgeous blossom crown like me !”
She added: “But I am loving it & going to wear it all day to celebrate #gardendayUK.
“I would love to hear how you are celebrating your outside space today & what it means to you generally so do share! #thepowerofhope.”
Kate’s day in the garden comes as her book The Power of Hope has soared to the top of the best seller list just days after being published.
The book about her husband Derek’s year-long battle with Covid – was only released last week but now occupies top spot in Amazon’s list of biographies.
Kate‘s chart news comes after the broadcaster revealed she feels like she’s starting a “whole new chapter” with her husband.
The TV presenter, 53, said she believes Derek “will improve” after returning home following a year in hospital fighting off Covid and the damage it had wreaked on his body.
“It’s just a whole new chapter that we’re starting on now, which is him at home and seeing how he can recover, seeing how he can recover and where he can go,” Kate told Times Radio.
“I believe he will improve. I think we’ve all been changed by what we’ve been through actually.
“The whole country has been changed by what we’ve been through,” she added. “So I don’t think he’ll be exactly the same person again.
“I don’t think I will be actually or any of us will be. I don’t think you will be either. I think we’ve all been so affected by the pandemic generally.”
Over the weekend, Kate revealed her sick husband was almost left paralysed by a rare brain inflammation.
She explained in her new book The Power of Hope that there were “fluffy white clouds floating in the top part of his head” after doctors found a small bleed on the brain.
Kate wrote in her book: “This, they told me, was a unique historical event, a one-off splurge of inflammation, and the fact that it showed up in some form on the earlier CT scans from back in April meant it happened right at the start when Derek was first on ECMO [life support].”
Doctors warned Kate that the infection reached spinal cord or brain stem his ability to move would have been affected.
His condition was so rare that medics hadn’t seen the inflammation caused by Covid in the UK. Others in Europe had reported similar cases.
Kate said last week that Derek can still barely talk nearly a month after being back with her and their two children Darcey and Billy.
She has praised her children as her “heroes” for adapting so well as their dad continues to recover.
Speaking on Radio 2 to Zoe Ball this week, she said: “He isn’t really able to speak at the moment so he can’t tell them off. I have to be the bad guy! They are my heroes.
“They know instinctively how to talk to him but not ask too much from him.”
She said Derek, also 53, needs “24-hour care” but added: “The hope is he will be able to progress”.