My eyes fall on the tractor. I know what that is. And it doesn’t look like it’s in bad condition, apart from a few cobwebs. I imagine myself bouncing along on the red tractor, cheerfully waving to passersby as I drive it around the farm. I wonder if it starts? At least it’d be one thing I could tick off the list. I give it a wary glance. The spiders have certainly had a field day with it. I brush cobwebs away as I climb up onto the seat, find the ignition key on my keyring and push it in. It’s going to be like the manual car I learnt to drive in. It won’t be a problem. I use my feet to press down on the clutch and the brake as I turn the key, and the tractor rumbles underneath me. Just as I think it’s about to start chugging merrily, it lets out a huge bang and the engine cuts out as the barn fills with smoke.

Perfect. I cough and cover my mouth to avoid breathing in the fumes.

‘That went as well as I expected.’

I jump and spin around in the seat to see Noel standing in the open door, waving smoke away from his face. Gizmo is on a lead beside him, peering worriedly in from a safe distance.

Perfect. Again. He’s definitely got radar for the worst possible timing. Couldn’t he have come five minutes later when I’d tried it again and it miraculously worked this time? Which it is definitely going to, because I can not afford a new tractor.

I clamber off the tractor and duck past him in the doorway to get outside into the fresh air. Gizmo looks up at me and wags his tail, and I kneel down on the concrete ramp to the barn door and give him a scritch. He’s wearing a hand-knitted blue hoodie with a paw print pattern around the edges and the hood tucked back under his harness. Just when I thought he couldn’t possibly be any more adorable.

I squint up at Noel in the morning sun. His hair is loose again, and the sunlight is picking out strands of golden brown that I hadn’t noticed yesterday amongst his mass of dark hair. His soft flannel shirt is red and grey plaid today, and he’s wearing black cargo trousers tucked into brown work boots laced up above his ankles. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I was walking Gizmo and I heard the distinct rumbling of some idiot trying to fumigate themselves by starting a tractor that hasn’t been started for over four years indoors.’

‘How was I supposed to know it was going to do that?’