His eyes cast over me with a contemplative look. ‘You had no trouble giving me a piece of your mind the other day and I was a stranger. Where’s this lack of confidence come from?’

‘Yeah, but you’re infuriating. There’s a difference.’ I don’t give him an answer to the confidence question. If I had time to think about it, I’d tell him about Steve taking advantage of my vulnerability after my parents’ deaths, and that discovering I was one of a handful of women he was sleeping with was enough to make me want to hide away and never speak to another human again.

Except I wouldn’t, because that would be oversharing, obviously.

‘Elffield survives on its community. If you’re going to live here, you’re a part of that. Just go and say hello, tell them you’ve moved into Peppermint Branches and the conversation will flow from there, I guaran—’

‘Don’t do the guarantree thing again, it wasn’t funny the first time.’

‘I know. That’s why you laughed.’ He gives me a wink. ‘And I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to tell you to go out on a limb.’

Despite my best efforts, it makes me laugh and eases some of the nerves as he shoos me away.

The market is quiet at this time of day. Most people have finished setting up their stalls and are standing next to them, chatting to other stallholders over cups of takeaway coffee from the hot drinks counter. It’s almost light outside and there’s a cold breeze blowing in through the open front. As I pass Fergus and Iain, Fergus calls across to the man selling hats and scarves at the next stall and tells him that I’ve bought Peppermint Branches, and it makes it surprisingly easy to start a conversation. As the hat and scarf seller asks me where I’m from and what I was doing before, the lady selling Scottish souvenirs catches wind of the conversation and comes over to join in, and then she drags me across to her stall, gives me a fittingly pine-scented air freshener of the Scottish flag, and introduces me to the woman who sells handmade candles on the stall behind her. Before I know it, I’ve been given a sampler candle, a loaf of bread from the breadmaker, the souvenir woman has weaved a string of tiny paper flags into my plait, the bookseller has gone through his stall and handed me a book about Britain’s native trees, and if anyone pays me another compliment on my hair, which I haven’t even brushed this morning, I might burst into tears.