Ellie Goulding and Dougie Poynter facing relationship test

Ellie Goulding's newly-revived romance with Dougie Poynter is to be tested as they will not be seeing each other for a "long time" due to work commitments.

The British pop star split from McFly rocker Dougie late last year (15), but they later rekindled their love affair and are now determined to make the relationship work.

However, Ellie admits the romance is going to be pushed to the brink this year (16) as they are being kept apart by their gruelling schedules.

"It's hard to maintain," she tells Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper. "We're very realistic about the situation. We're realistic about the fact that I'm in Europe and he's in L.A. and we take each day as it comes. He's in L.A. for a while now so I won't see him for a long time."

Ellie recently opened up about the couple's brief break-up, revealing it actually brought them much closer.

"You don't throw something like that away so easily," she told Britain's Red Magazine. "Before him, I was having a single period and hating all men, saying never again, after a series of things that happened to me. But then I met him and was like, uh-oh, game over. He was just so nice."

She also admitted struggling with the pressure of work in the run-up to Christmas, adding, "The last month has been really testing, on everything, on my sanity. The music industry isn't like other industries - there are no rules about working hours, or taking breaks. A working day will start with a 4am flight and finish at 3am the next day. Sometimes I don't have time to eat in the day."

After the holidays, Ellie jetted off to Norway for a vacation with friends, but the trip nearly ended in tragedy when the van they were driving plunged into an icy lake.

Ellie and her pals had to be rescued, and the singer admits the experience was terrifying, telling the Daily Mirror, "I thought I was going to drown for about two or three seconds. But my first thought was about saving (friend) Conor... I was more concerned about getting him out than myself and that really surprised me. Usually I'm the kind of person to panic... It was scary. I feel like I learnt something about myself in that kind of situation."