‘Are those more of Aleš’s cousins?’ Petra’s unruly chestnut mare charged past them all.

‘Polish cakes,’ she explained, clinging onto the reins. ‘Make my old ma’s fifteens look like diet food. I’m amazed Ryanair didn’t charged me excess baggage on these Michelins.’ She patted her belly, ignoring the crabby looks from her fellow riders who knew she was the only one amongst them whose gym membership card got swiped regularly.

Yet for all her air of sharp hipster cool, Bridge liked sweet things: Haribos, mojitos, Gil Elvgren illustrations, sticky desserts and unicorns. Her husband Aleš – typically Polish, romantic and soppily sentimental – was very sweet when he wasn’t being oafish or sulky, their little Cotswold cottage with beams so low he bumped his head every day was sweet, their chubby-wristed toddler Flavia and curly-haired tot Zak were both sweet, and Bridge’s dappled grey pony was sugar-spun perfection. Wise enough to see that amongst her village riding friends, her comparative youth and inexperience was also sweet, Bridge was nonetheless a competitive soul who found failure a bitter pill to swallow.

Bridge had flown home two days earlier than planned, summoned back from Krakow to the Cotswolds by an eleventh-hour job interview. Abandoning Aleš and the children to see in Nowego Roku without her, she’d been almost as excited by the prospect of a rare chance to be Zen in their cluttered little cottage – and to ride – as in her bid to return to work after her long baby sabbatical. As it turned out, the attempt at a career reboot was a waste of dry cleaning. Running the business administration side of a chain of Cotswold gastro pubs owned by a self-absorbed daytime telly star was always going to be a tall order for a straight-talking Belfast woman like Bridge. She didn’t suffer fools, especially matcha and redbean ones topped with black sesame Yatsuhashi.

‘How did the interview go?’ Mo asked eagerly, red-faced from the effort of kicking her coloured cob along to keep up with the others. ‘Is the Sous Vide as mad as they say?’

‘Madder,’ Bridge grumbled, thinking back to the breathless half hour spent following the glow of Suzy David’s famously bleached white crew cut and perpetually animated iPad around the village pub. ‘We could have done the whole thing on Skype. She needs common sense, not an HR consultant. D’you know she’s dropping the “Jugged” from “Hare” because she thinks it has unfortunate beer and boob connotations? I said, “Queen, it’s a country pub. Boozing and tit-ogling are still legal blood sports round here.”’

‘You didn’t!’

Utterly professional in work mode, Bridge had waited to say it into her hall mirror afterwards, but she winked now, satisfied it was God’s truth. She had a reputation to protect; her three riding friends delighted in being shocked by their Belfast black sheep. Youngest and most urban of the four, and with the shortest and hottest marriage, Bridge’s chippy streak meant she took on the plums in her fellow riders’ mouths with her pierced tongue. She considered it her duty to be the naughty kid at the back of the middle class. Historical novelist Petra, Yorkshire-born and determinedly left wing, might fancy herself the arty boho outsider, but she had a barrister husband, independently educated children and a working gun dog. Farmer’s daughter Mo – perpetually broke, always dealing with a family crisis and juggling three jobs – ate home-reared guinea fowl and hunted twice a week. And Gill, grey-haired, gung-ho equine vet, mother of three and Laura Ashley devotee, was an original Sloane Ranger, if endearingly supportive. They were all diamonds, this mounted big-sisterhood, whose kindness and honesty had seen Bridge through giddying ups and downs during her first year in the village, their endless good humour and wise counsel keeping her sane, their poshness a running joke to a dock-worker’s daughter from Ardoyne.