‘It doesn’t matter, children,’ I say, sliding the kettle on to the hotplate of the Aga. ‘We’ll have him back soon.’

Posy has come into the kitchen, a lone tear glistening like glycerine on her peaches-and-cream cheek. I feel awful. I thought Posy wouldn’t mind that much – to be honest, she has always been much more interested in unicorns than ponies.

‘I know – as it’s ages before lunch, I’m going to take you on an adventure.’

Three pairs of eyes switch over to regard me with the greatest of suspicion. Ralph is now ploughing doggedly through the Family section of the Guardian, which this Saturday carries a harrowing account of a couple’s decision to circumcize their baby son. He is the only man I know who reads every section of every newspaper, including the Style section of the Sunday Times, i.e., including all the girly bits that are literally designed to shake him to his masculine core.

‘Not the dentist!’ Cas cries.

‘No, not the dentist,’ I say. ‘It’s an adventure. A nice surprise.’

‘But that’s what you said when we did, like, a massive twenty-mile walk to Godminster and back. And all we got was an ice-cream. I don’t trust you,’ says Mirabel. ‘Forget it. I’m not coming.’

I refuse to be drawn, and chivvy them into the car.

And so it is that, in order to cheer the children up for the loss of Trumpet, I find myself, a few minutes later, parking in the soggy patch of ground at Larcombe’s Foot which serves as the car park and postal delivery centre for Spodden’s Hatch. We park by a box mounted on stilts for deliveries, don’t bother to lock (we are learning country ways), and are soon tramping through brushy undergrowth to the eco-village, where Sophy is holding one of her masterclasses to ‘raise awareness of all of our herbal heritage’.

Obviously, I haven’t told the children. I just said in the car that we were going on an adventure which would involve magic potions and homemade biscuits – no doubt sweetened with carob treacle and made with spelt and with the mouthfeel of pebbledash – but there we go. They are still – just – children and, to them, a biscuit is still a biscuit.

Rose

I sit on the chair lift with Granville, drinking in the wonderful 360 degree diorama of jagged peaks, the crisp air, the sheer delight of being somewhere else, and not being responsible for meals.