I’m invited to join them, but I just want to get home and, after much mopping-up and apologizing to the quizmaster, I make my excuses and leave. The cottage is pitch-dark. Flicking on the hallway light, I dump my bag on the floor, unclip Harry’s lead and busy myself by filling up his water bowl, flicking on the kettle, fussing over him and giving him a treat.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, I sit down at the kitchen table. Weariness threatens to overwhelm me. My new log-burner’s finally been installed and I briefly think about making a fire and turning on the TV, but I have no energy or enthusiasm for either. I can’t believe I’m back here. Depression lurks in the shadows, waiting for me, and I look at the clock on the wall. Eight thirty. Is it too early to go to bed?

The kettle clicks itself off, but I ignore it and, leaving the teabag waiting patiently in its mug, turn off the lights and go upstairs. Harry loyally follows me, his soft body brushing against my legs as I head straight for the bathroom, where he flops himself down on the rug. His presence is comforting and I begin to get undressed. The walk-in shower has been installed. Ben was right: it looks great. The tiles and fittings that he suggested are sleek and stylish, and it’s got this huge, rainfall shower-head.

And yet all I want is to run myself a bath and collapse into it. Soak it all away. Naked, I go to turn on the shower, then remember my dressing gown. It’s hanging on the back of my bedroom door. I go to get it – and that’s when I see it. Free-standing in the corner of my bedroom, its white cast-iron curves lit up by the moonlight streaming in from my window: a roll-top bath. Like I always dreamed of.

What the—?

For a moment I stand motionless in the doorway, before noticing a scrap of paper taped to the side. I pad barefoot across the floorboards and peel it off:

Stanley got into his new school! This is just a little thank you from the both of us. The farmer let me have it. Don’t worry, it’s been cleaned and re-enamelled. Now you get to soak in a long bath until the cows come home.

Ben

I stare at the note, then back at the bath in disbelief. No, it can’t be. It’s unrecognizable. And yet as the words slowly sink in, so does the realization that this is the same rusty old claw-foot bath that the farmer was using as a water trough for his cows – the one I used to walk past in the fields and photographed to show Ben. He knew how disappointed I was when I couldn’t fit a new bath in my tiny bathroom, nor afford one. Somehow he’s salvaged and transformed it, and plumbed it all in while I was away this weekend. He’s even left a bottle of bubble bath.