Thanks to Valentine’s amazing decorating skills, upstairs is unrecognizable, while the newly created attic room is fun and quirky. Ben was right. It works brilliantly. As for the avocado bathroom suite, it’s now an ancient memory, and in my bedroom I’ve got the kind of stunning claw-foot bath you see in all those glossy interiors magazines; only mine’s better, because it’s been rescued from a field. Every time I take a bath, I’m reminded that just because something is old or dirty or falling apart, that doesn’t mean it has no value. And, with love and effort, it can be transformed.

Because what I love most of all is that I can still recognize the old cottage underneath its makeover. The history is still there, in the old beams and flagstones and fireplaces. Ben has restored the house but managed to keep its charm, the parts of it that made it special. It’s the same house with the same history, the same bones, the same quirks that make it so unique, but it’s much improved.

A bit like me, really.

I feel like, after all I’ve been through, I’ve been stripped back, polished and now have reinforced steel joints running right through me.

With the house finished, things can go back to normal. Only when I get up on Monday morning, I can’t help asking myself: What is normal? After feeding Harry and letting him out into the garden, so that he can go through his morning routine of chasing his nemesis the squirrel, I stand in my brand spanking new kitchen and gaze out through my folding doors, which I’ve pushed right back to let the outside in.

It’s early, but the sweet smell of fresh hay is already in the air. It’s haymaking season and I can see right across to the open fields, and the local farmer already hard at work in the distance. I listen to the soft rumble of the tractor, watching it moving slowly up and down in the morning haze, my mind drifting.

Ever since moving here, renovating the cottage has been my focus, but now that Ben and his builders have gone, it’s left a space. A void. I need to find a new project.

Turning away from the view, I fill the kettle and switch it on. On my counter is my laptop and I flick it open. On the screen are a couple of half-finished application forms for full-time teaching jobs. Great positions in good schools and the salaries aren’t bad, either . . . And yet the honest truth is I don’t feel any great passion for them. I love teaching, but I’ve been doing it my whole life and I don’t want to go back into a classroom. I want to do something new and different – only I’m not sure what or how. So much in my life has changed, and I’ve changed with it; but one thing that hasn’t are the bills that I still have to pay.