Their young helper, Marcelline, who came in two days a week because that was all they could afford, would make up the bed and ensure everything was ready for Meredith’s arrival. Steph returned her focus to the plan for tonight’s dinner. It looked like a full house – twelve people – which was good news, as it meant she’d make a bit of profit if she budgeted cleverly enough. Before she left home she’d bought a little book called Running a B&B in France, and it had become her bible. By doing dinner, the book asserted, you could double the income from every room. Most people who stayed in places like theirs didn’t want to go out to eat because they’d often be doing a lot of driving anyway. And of course, there was the drink/drive risk, which the French gaily ignored, as they did any troublesome bureaucratic imposition. So most guests liked to eat in.

The standard fare at a chambre d’hôte was a four-course meal – usually soup, an entrée and a pudding plus a selection of cheeses and a glass of wine – all for a prix fixe. Nowadays, of course, there had to be a vegetarian option. Fortunately, Steph had taken a brief professional cooking course just before they’d moved to France. Before then, she’d been rather an extravagant cook who wasted a hideous amount of food. Now she was the queen of portion control and detailed planning.

It had been a challenge at first but she had soon realized preparation in advance was the key; and thank God for her freezer! Messing about with anything last-minute was a potential disaster. Thankfully, most guests didn’t seem to expect haute cuisine.

Tonight, in honour of Meredith, they were having something more special than usual: iced courgette soup and then a traditional coq au vin, but with Steph’s special dauphinois au gratin potatoes, which always went down a treat. They would finish with tarte tatin, another sure-fire winner. And then, of course, cheese. It was the cheese you had to watch or it could make the cost of the meal rocket, so she always stuck strictly to three very good local ones.

As she peeled the potatoes, it struck Steph that you learned some funny things running a B&B. Beds, for example. She’d discovered that the British and French liked double beds but the Americans, Germans, Scandinavians and especially Japanese preferred twin beds. Funny, because after all, the British were famous for not being interested in sex!

The other thing she’d learned was that most people didn’t bother to unpack, so vast wall-covering wardrobes were a waste of space – which was a pity, since they were very cheap nowadays. In fact, she’d bought a couple and repainted them, and hadn’t been able to resist a delightful, vast armoire with pastoral scenes of shepherds painted on the panels.