Don Your Way column: Reunited in a social bubble after 82 long days

But last Saturday, me and my partner were finally reunited after 82 long and horrible days of lockdown.

As we live apart, the Government's lockdown in mid-March ensured it would be three long months before our paths crossed again.

We’d already abandoned plans for the summer, guessing it would be July or even longer before we were allowed to meet under the same roof again.

The Government’s announcement allowing people who live alone to form a social bubble with another household caught us both on the hop.

Despite being a journalist, I’d long since stopped watching the daily briefings, fed up of hearing some suit tell me that this, that and the other would be re-opening, but never delivering the news that everyone wanted to hear - and that was when families and partners would be allowed to get back together again.

She was busy in the middle of a Zoom call – and it was only a BBC Breaking News alert that I read over and over to make sure that we could properly and officially meet that told me of the news we’d both been waiting for.

Unlike others (did some mention Dominic Cummings?) we’d stuck rigidly to the rules, knowing that we could stand up and say we’d done our bit of staying home, protecting the NHS and saving lives.

Yes, it was tough, yes, it was a slog at times and yes, we’d drained our phones to within an inch of their lives through nightly video calls.

And yes, there were times we thought of meeting up and sticking two fingers up to the official advice.

But we did it to protect our families and others. And what’s more, neither of us felt the need for a trip to Barnard Castle to test our eyesight either.

And now it feels like we’ve never been apart.

We’ve spent the last week catching up and just being back in each other’s company. Long may it last.