There was a lot riding on this holiday, thought Em, folding T-shirts and packing them into a suitcase. Back when she’d made the booking – miserable and alone on Christmas Day – she’d had no idea that it would turn out to be anything other than another summer break for her, Izzie and Jack: two weeks of trying to force her teenagers out of bed before midday to enjoy the beautiful Cornish countryside and beaches, plus at least one waistband-punishing cream tea for good measure. But now . . . Well, everything was different now. Their fortnight away was shaping up to be a whole new kind of trip.

If only someone could have told her, back on that desolate afternoon, that life was about to take an exciting upward turn! She still hadn’t quite forgiven Dom for making it the worst Christmas ever. Off she’d gone on Christmas Eve, driving the kids over to the posh new Cirencester house he shared with his bimbo girlfriend Michelle, with him assuring her – promising her – that of course he would drive them back home after lunch the following day. And what had he done? Forgotten his so-called promise and tucked into the gin, champagne and port over his roast turkey and trimmings so that he was over the limit, the selfish prick. ‘Michelle’s plastered too,’ he’d told her sheepishly over the phone when he rang to confess. ‘Christmas spirit and all that. We’ll drop them back tomorrow, okay?’

No, it was not remotely okay. Em had gone from shocked to devastated to downright fuming in the space of about ten seconds. And of course, by then, she had already put away two massive glasses of wine herself – well, you had to, didn’t you, when you were without your kids and finding the whole solo Christmas thing horribly unfestive – and didn’t feel it was her destiny to get arrested for drunk-driving on Christmas Day, either. The upsetting news that she was now unable to see her own children for the whole day had sent her nosediving straight into the Baileys, as well as polishing off an entire family pack of pigs-in-blankets and most of the cheeseboard, hacking into the Stilton as if she was committing a murder. If only. Afterwards she’d resorted to quite a lot of spontaneous spirit-boosting online purchases in order to endure the festive marathon – including a holiday, she had discovered, waking up on Boxing Day and blinking at the emailed receipts with a thumping head. A holiday in a gorgeous four-bedroom barn conversion down in Cornwall, which had cost practically a month’s wages, no less.