‘Look.’ Helga points toward the groyne to where there’s a small brown bird on the pebbles.

‘It’s a turnstone.’

Claire watches as it picks over a shell then looks up to check that nobody has seen it, then puts its head down again. If Helga hadn’t pointed it out, she’d have never noticed it. She can see that the bird is torn between the world at its feet and the world around it. It’s fascinating to watch.

In the water, they all set off in a slow swim parallel to the shore. It’s taken a will of steel, but Claire’s proud of herself for getting in with the minimum of fuss, like Helga. She watches her gloves beneath the surface, still hardly able to believe they’re hers. She got the neoprene boots and gloves online and she feels more like she belongs now she has the right kit.

‘How are you finding it?’ Helga asks her.

‘Fecking cold, but good.’ Somehow it feels OK to swear in front of Helga.

‘Hmm, my temperature gauge says that it’s bloody cold. Not fucking cold,’ Tor says, and Claire laughs, realising that this is an ‘in’ joke between them all.

‘It’s fucking cold in February and March,’ Dominica clarifies in a posh accent, as if that’s an actual thing.

‘I’m glad you’ve got a working temperature gauge. I don’t seem to be able to control my temperature at the best of times,’ Claire tells Dominica. ‘I wake up all the time in the night with hot sweats.’ It’s the first time she’s admitted this, but she sees that Tor and Helga are listening, so she goes on. ‘It drives my husband crazy. I can’t bear for him to touch me and I fling off the duvet and then I lie there, feeling myself sweating from head-to-toe and it’s disgusting. My nightie clings to me, my hair gets sodden, and my scalp feels like it’s on fire. Then, just as quickly, I’m freezing and shivering.’

‘Oh yeah. That.’ Dominica clearly understands exactly what Claire is describing.

Claire tells them about how frustrating it is to be so clumsy and how Pim and the boys tease her for mispronouncing her words and forgetting everything.

‘They make me feel like a right eejit.’

‘Don’t they speak menopause?’ Dominica asks. ‘I know exactly what a thingummy in a whatsit means in the right context.’

‘At least someone does.’

‘It sounds to me like you need to get tooled up. First off, you need a Chillow Pillow.’

‘What’s that?’

Dominica flips over on her back so that she can talk more easily to Claire. Her words mist on the water as she explains that it’s a thing you put in the fridge and then under your pillow at night and then you can flip it to stop your head being so hot.

‘And I’ve heard the magnets are great,’ Dominica continues. ‘My sister-in-law swears by them. Menopoised. That’s the site. I’ll send you the link. You put a tiny magnet in a plaster on the back of your neck on a heat acupressure point. Works wonders for some.’