After half an hour of energetic digging, she made a reluctant return indoors. Discarding her boots, she padded into the atmospheric old kitchen. A range stove installed in the nineteen twenties ensured a comforting background level of warmth and remained the most modern appliance in the room.

‘Good afternoon, Ophelia,’ Haddock greeted her in the plummy tones at which he excelled.

‘Afternoon, Haddock,’ Ophelia responded.

‘Time for tea, time for tea!’ Haddock informed her, patrolling his perch.

Ophelia took the hint and fetched a peanut to give the parrot. She was hugely attached to him. He was almost sixty years old.

‘Lovely Haddock! Lovely Haddock!’ the bird opined.

Knowing his need for affection, Ophelia smoothed his feathered head and cuddled him.

Familiar footsteps sounded in the stone corridor. Pamela Arnold, a woman in her late twenties with short red hair and lively brown eyes, strolled in. ‘You definitely need a man to get up close and personal with.’

‘No, thanks. I’m not that desperate yet.’ Ophelia wasn’t joking either for, with the exception of her long-departed grandfather, the men in her life had always been a source of trouble, heartache and disillusionment. Her father had walked out when she was very young. Once he had started a new family with his second wife he had forgotten that Ophelia existed. Her mother had dated men who’d cheated her out of money, beaten her up and betrayed her with other women. And Ophelia’s first love had told lies about her that had led to her being horribly bullied at school.

‘Oh, no…are you feeding us again?’ Ophelia groaned, embarrassed at the sight of the other woman settling a casserole dish on the scrubbed pine table. ‘I can’t let you keep on doing this-’