She and Zak were sitting in the pretty garden of a small hotel in the centre of Mickleton, a slow ten-minute stroll from Zak’s cottage.

Lauren was wearing a white, strappy summer dress that she didn’t even remember packing, and Zak was looking handsome in a dark linen shirt, his hair freshly washed.

‘You do eat puddings?’ Zak frowned.

‘I’m sure I used to, once,’ she said. Though she couldn’t quite recall when.

‘Well, it won’t do you any harm,’ he told her. ‘You could do with a bit of meat on your bones.’

‘And sticky toffee pudding will do that?’

‘Most definitely.’

The Three Ways House Hotel, as Zak explained, was the home of The Pudding Club. The couple who ran it had grown tired of going to restaurants where all that was on offer for dessert was frozen cheesecake or Black Forest Gâteau, and had decided to do something about it. Thus The Pudding Club was born – nearly twenty-five years ago. Now there were regular dinners where good, old-fashioned traditional British puddings were the mainstay of the menu.

Zak clinked his champagne glass against hers. ‘To you,’ he said.

‘I’m not sure that I’ve got anything much to celebrate.’

‘To a new start.’

‘A new start,’ Lauren echoed, and sipped at her fizz. She felt as if she was a million miles away from London, in a different country almost. And it was a nice place to be.

An old school bell was rung at the door to signal the start of dinner.

Zak took her by the hand and, smiling, said, ‘Let’s go and have some fun.’

They sat at large communal tables in the dining room – a young couple on a romantic weekend away on one side and an older couple celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary on the other. She thought with a sharp pang that it was quite a surprise that Jude had never brought her to this place. It was just his sort of thing.

The light main course was dispensed with efficiently before the serious business of introducing the puddings got underway. By the time all the different traditional steamed puddings were brought in, both she and Zak had knocked back quite a bit of wine. Lauren was feeling decidedly merry and better than she had in a long time.

The couples next to them were full of fun and she realised that virtually every restaurant meal she’d had with Jude had been spent huddled at a corner table with them avoiding eye-contact with anyone apart from the waiter. What a delightful difference this was!

Each pudding was introduced in turn and everyone in the room banged their spoons on the table to herald their arrival. Gargantuan puddings with clouds of sweet, aromatic steam rising from them were paraded before them – sticky toffee pudding, spotted dick, jam roly poly, golden syrup sponge and chocolate pudding.