She wasn’t living here entirely for free; she paid her friends a nominal amount of rent on the grounds that she took good care of the house while they were away. They’d decided that once it was safe enough to travel again they would spend their last year of freedom before starting a family travelling the world. They had jacked in their jobs and simply taken off. They were currently in Kyoto in Japan before going on to Vietnam.

It was the kind of thing Willow would love to do if she had the money. Although knowing her, she’d probably get hopelessly lost.

‘Bloody risky if you ask me,’ her boyfriend, Rick, had said when she’d explained to him why she was lucky enough to be living so close to Victoria Park in London and in such a great house, considering her lack of funds.

Lucy and Simon could have earned far more money renting out the house through a letting agency, but then they would have had to get rid of their two beloved Siamese cats, Sirius and Cedric.

Every week Willow had to email Lucy with an update on the cats and her biggest fear was that one of them might escape through a door that she had accidentally left open. They were strictly indoor cats, apparently too pampered and valuable to be allowed to roam the neighbourhood.

Thinking about it, confessing to Lucy that she had nearly set the house on fire by falling asleep in the bath would be far easier than admitting she had lost one of the cats.

With her precious charges on her mind, she went to look for Sirius and Cedric. She found them curled up together in the shallow log basket by the radiator in the sitting room. They had proper beds to sleep in but rarely used them, preferring instead the empty log basket with a blanket to lie on.

When Rick came here, she had to keep the cats away from him because he was so allergic to their fur; it made him sneeze and his eyes itch. Which was why he liked her to spend time at his place, or for them go out.

They had met almost four months ago back in December last year – in the way that so many people met these days, by swiping right on Tinder.

He was the one who had swiped right first and after checking out his profile and liking what she saw (he had a nice smile that lit up his eyes), she swiped right to make a match. They then started messaging each other and a couple of weeks later they arranged to meet in a bar. The rest, as they say, is history.

But given how bad at sticking with a relationship she was (she could never get beyond the six-month mark), was Rick destined to be part of Willow’s history, and not her future?

It was too soon to tell.

Those of her friends who had met Rick said he was a great catch, and even Martha, who never approved of any of Willow’s boyfriends, described him as a keeper. Mum liked him too, and no doubt Dad, if he were still alive, would have given him the thumbs up too.