I frown, pushing my new glasses back up my nose. They feel heavy on my face, out of place. I probably shouldn’t have been talked into them by the Gok Wan-lookalike assistant at the optician. New hair. New glasses. A new wardrobe at home with every item still carrying the price tag. Belts to accentuate my waist. Also Gok’s fault – the real one. Can you have a mid-life crisis at the age of twenty-eight?

‘These are great, by the way,’ says Emma, circling the air in the general direction of my face. ‘Tres Geek Chic.’

‘Yes, that’s me. Geek and indeed chic,’ I say, fiddling with them again. I can hear my tone; it’s definitely approaching grumpy yet I don’t have the strength to buck my ideas up.

Emma adopts a bad, Irish accent. ‘You remind me of a young Nana Mouskouri.’

‘A who?’

‘Greece’s finest export!’ she exclaims. ‘Well, Nana and feta.’

The blank look I give her in response forces an optimistic nod of encouragement, as if that answers everything, then a swift roll of her eyes when she realises I’ve no idea. ‘Come on, misery. If we didn’t laugh we’d cry,’ she goads, followed swiftly by, ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here…’

‘Don’t!’ I say, my hands shielding my ears, stopping her before she can finish. There’s a pause in our chat, a pause filled with the warmth of a friendship that can transcend my mood. I crack a half-smile. She’s someone I need right now. She gets me.

I drain my mug – lukewarm is better than none at all – and place it back on the table, waiting for Emma to finish our holiday handover while I resist a second biscuit; it’s barely 9 a.m.

‘So, Susan Smith, then,’ she continues. ‘She was in with that new consultant in charge—’

‘Ooh, Mr Just-Call-Me-Mark Barnes!’ says a bank nurse pushing laundry past our station, dirty bed sheets overflowing. ‘I wouldn’t mind being in with him,’ she says, gurning like Vic Reeves, minus a thigh rub.

‘Leg brace and everything!’ Emma shouts after her with a giggle and a snort.

‘Leg brace and everything?’ I repeat, shaking my head. ‘That doesn’t even make sense, Emma. I thought this was Sheffield’s finest teaching hospital, not a remake of Carry On Nurse.’ I frown again. ‘A few days away and you lot have gone rampant.’ I’m no longer approaching grumpy. I’m right there, wearing its heavy cloak. A cloak smattered with the gentle whiff of Eau de Post Break-Up and Still Not Over It.

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about “Just-Call-Me-Mark” even just a teensy bit?’ Emma looks shocked. Like maybe I’m not a real woman or something.

‘No, actually, I haven’t.’ I glance over the rim of my glasses to labour my point. At least they’re good for something. ‘Mr Barnes doesn’t do it for me at all.’ Which is true. He’s not my type. I wouldn’t say he was a cad – because I’m not from the 1950s – but he’s borderline. Borderline cad. He’s also a consultant. Attractive? I suppose, if you like that sort of thing, but a consultant all the same.