Which currently was more than she herself seemed capable of. Since she’d had her pregnancy officially confirmed by her GP and had her first appointment with a midwife – she was now ten weeks – she appeared rather alarmingly to have lost touch with her ability to apply logic and reason. During the last year when her longing for a child had dominated most of her waking thoughts, her emotions had been disagreeably up and down. But there had at least been a manageable order to them; now, they were all over the place. Trying to keep track of her emotions was like herding cats.

For the most part her brain felt as though it was turning to mush and, completely out of character, she cried at the slightest thing. Last night an advert on the telly for a brand of washing detergent had reduced her to tears. Her undoing had been the sight of a small child upset because she’d spilled blackcurrant juice down her new dress shortly before her birthday party began. The girl’s father had come to the rescue by using the newly improved washing detergent tablets and the closing scene showed the doe-eyed girl blowing out the candles on her cake and looking adoringly at her father. The stupid thing was, working in the industry she did, Martha knew perfectly well how the ad had been put together with one cynical aim in mind, to manipulate and exploit the target audience’s emotions.

Her other problem, aside from crying at the slightest thing, was her absent-mindedness and inability to concentrate. Which put her at a distinct disadvantage in the office. She had actually left for work one morning still clutching her electric toothbrush, thinking it was her mobile.

Baby brain; that’s what they called it. The official definition referred to a state of impaired memory and concentration, combined with a general lack of mental agility. It could be experienced not only during pregnancy, but after giving birth also.

On top of all that was the extreme tiredness that consumed her at times. Just the thought was enough to bring on a yawn. Not just any old yawn, but the jaw-breaking kind. Followed by another, and then another.

‘Ready for bed?’ asked Tom, turning to look at her with one of his gentle smiles.

‘It’s crazy,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t matter how much sleep I have, it’s not enough.’

‘Poor you,’ he said. ‘But just think, the next time we come down for the fête, we’ll have the Beanie with us.’

She smiled back at him. How easily they had slipped into using the nickname Tom had come up with for their baby.

‘And the Beanie will have a cousin too,’ he said. ‘What’s the betting there’ll be a new generation of Miller Girls; a mini Martha and a mini Willow?’

‘Dad would have loved that,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Tom, ‘he would have. He used to say to me how glad he was to have an ally, another man around to help even out the score, but I think deep down he was much happier having daughters.’