‘If he’s into planes, then he’s more Harrison Ford than Mel,’ Gill suggested eagerly.

‘Harrison’s always been crumbly,’ Petra countered. ‘Well, Cottage Man is not crumbly.’

‘Mel’s a Wensleydale of crumbliness,’ insisted Mo. ‘Bridge deserves better.’

Bridge tuned out of the argument. Petra was welcome to Well Cottage Man. It was all just for show, and she was happy enough to stay loyal to her original SMC and next-door neighbour, Flynn, a Lothario farrier with the flirtiest eyes in the Bardswolds, the only man in Back Lane brave enough to park in the space Aleš Mazur liked to leave his van.

Her thoughts returned to her career, a driving force in her life, currently SORNed.

Bridge’s ascent into office management was a subject upon which she’d always been jokingly sardonic, her vocation accidental. It was a far cry from the creative dreams she and Bernie had shared when first leaving Belfast to take up their places at the London College of Fashion, one set on being the next Orla Kiely, the other a cutting-edge make-up artist. Being a material girl had always been an important part of Bridge’s fabric, the office temping jobs she’d taken on to pay her way through her textile degree proving so profitable, it was hard to give up the money after graduating. Whereas laidback Bernie had been happy to drift artfully from party to club to unpaid work experience, wearing the longest false eyelashes in Marylebone in search of a break as a make-up artist, Bridge had always put graft before craft. And when both girls wanted to stay on in London after graduating, it was Bridge’s ‘straight’ job that earned their way. Her court shoe on the property ladder had come long before her peers’; promotions followed, her ever-fattening salary funding parties, exotic holidays, a flashy car, designer clothes. Looking back now, Bridge wished she’d stopped to enjoy the view more often.

‘My Barry is definitely Emmental.’ The Bags were now comparing husbands to cheeses, Mo’s red-faced husband typecast in wax. ‘Mild and nutty.’

‘Charlie’s Stilton – blue-veined and at his best after dinner,’ Petra said loyally. ‘What about Paul, Gill?’

‘Dairylea slice,’ said Gill dismissively.

They all looked at Bridge, expecting her to come up with an unpronounceable Polish mountain cheese with a complicated flavour, as deep and smoky as her giant of a husband.

‘Cheddar,’ she said firmly. ‘Delicious, popular and versatile.’

The pragmatic, no-nonsense attitude that had propelled Bridge into management in her early twenties had also lent her a common-sense romantic outlook. By twenty-five, reluctant to follow her alter-ego twin into dating a series of heartbreaking deviants, Bridge had a strict wish list: he had to be tall, practical, funny and hard-working, like to get drunk, and shag well. Upgrading from Kilburn flat to Harlesden townhouse, she’d hired the sexiest Polish builder in town to convert her loft, soon ticking all the boxes before earning herself another top-floor promotion, this time from girlfriend to wife.

Five years later she was a stay-at-home mother of two, riding around the Home Counties with three middle-aged women, wondering who had hijacked her life. She’d gone from high flying to autopilot. She had to figure out how to take back the controls.