‘Because I might need it to cast magic spells,’ she says gravely, bouncing up and down in the child safety seat that I found being offered for sale in the post office window.

‘I wish adults got to carry wands,’ I confide as we pass over the eighteenth-century packhorse bridge, silently saying my prayers that we don’t meet anyone coming the other way.

‘We get iPhones instead,’ remarks Naomi.

‘They’re not quite as magical, though, are they?’

As we climb higher, the blue skies widen and sun streams in through the windscreen. I roll down the windows, letting in the fresh air.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says Naomi, ‘one of the filters makes me look about twenty years younger. I’d call that pretty bloody magical.’

‘Mummy swore!’ giggles Ellie.

Which makes us all laugh as, hair blowing around our faces and hands surfing the warm winds, we continue towards the top of the world.

Perched at the top of the hill, and more than a thousand years old, Raven Castle might not look like something out of a Disney movie, but with its huge turrets and drawbridge, it’s still almost as impressive. Ellie doesn’t look disappointed, either. With our tickets in our hands, I watch her – wide-eyed with wonder as she charges ahead through the turnstiles – remembering my own and Josie’s reactions when we first came here. I couldn’t believe the castle was real.

‘So Danny wants us to move in together,’ says Naomi as we follow Ellie into the Tudor courtyard; it’s exactly the same as I remember it.

‘That’s great,’ I react, as one does to good news, then sense something’s wrong. ‘Isn’t it?’

She sighs, then bites her lip and frowns. ‘I don’t know.’

‘But you said you wanted him to show more commitment.’

‘I do. I did. It’s just . . .’

Normally so articulate, she breaks off and shoves her hands deep in the pockets of her dungarees, as if she might find the right words in there.

‘So what did you say?’

‘I said I wasn’t sure; that I had Ellie to consider and it was a big step . . . Of course Danny completely took it the wrong way and saw it as a rejection, and it turned into this great big row.’

We climb the stone steps that lead into the grand dining hall. A huge barrel-vaulted roof soars above us like a cathedral. We crick our necks and gaze upwards.

‘Mummy, look!’ Ellie points to two members of staff dressed in suits of armour. Several children are gathered around, as they do some kind of show-and-tell. We walk over to join them.

‘Are you rejecting him?’ I keep my voice low.

‘No!’ Naomi hisses.

Barely able to contain herself with excitement, Ellie pushes her way to the front. We stand with the rest of the adults and watch the poor souls sweating in their heavy costumes as they re-enact one of the sieges.

But I can’t have looked convinced by Naomi’s denial, as a few moments later she leans in. ‘Danny said I didn’t let him in. And OK, I admit there’s probably some truth in that,’ she confesses, looking guilty. ‘But I’ve done everything by myself for so long. It was always just me; and then it was me and Ellie. I’ve had to be independent, to not need anyone, to put up the barriers and go it alone.’