I step out of the plane into bright sunshine and the smell of bougainvillea and aviation fuel. The air is hot and sweet, and I breathe it in like nectar. I help Dad down the creaking metal steps, both of us gripping the handrail: him for support, me to steady my nerves. We are here. We have made it. It’s been a long flight. Behind us, clunking her case noisily down the metal steps (I wonder if Dad is counting them) is someone who has been annoying me greatly on the flight. This person has been sucking loudly on sweets, tutting intermittently at any number of random things, laughing like a runaway flute, twittering on about everything and nothing and basically being an absolute pain in the rear.

‘Bloody hell, it’s hot!’ says Angela as she stops halfway down the steps and surveys the view. ‘I need to take my jumper off.’

‘Well, of course it’s hot,’ I say. ‘That jumper’s hideous, anyway. Where did you get it from? Some crabby old fisherman who discarded it down a Nova Scotian ice hole?’

‘Very funny.’

I grin at her and she grins back.

Dad and I have been to Nova Scotia for a week. We played with Angela’s two beautiful daughters, who are not spoilt at all, despite all the Facebook boasting on their behalf, and are absolute sweethearts who like jigsaw puzzles and tickles and getting messy down at the lake. I silently apologized to them for being such a crap auntie and we spent hours making paper chains and mashing up petals for rose perfume. We visited the lighthouse at Louisbourg and went down to the port with Warren and were introduced to his new boat, Beatty. We had pancakes and crab cakes and various types of pie down at Missy’s Diner. We sat in the swing chair on the veranda and talked to Angela about everything we ever should have talked about.