By the time the barman arrived with her glass, her feet were lovely and toasty and she’d kicked off her shoes to curl up in the generously sized chair with her warm toes under her bottom. It reminded her of being a little girl again when she could duck down into the sofa with a book and no one would know she was there.

‘Thank you.’

‘Enjoy. You’ve the best spot in the house here.’

She took a sip of the rich ruby wine and sighed with pleasure. This was heaven and she had just the thing to round off the experience perfectly: her Kindle. A book, a glass of wine, a fire, and nothing else to do. What was not to like? It was the first time in she didn’t know how long that she’d not been working and striving towards the next thing: GSCEs, A levels, law degree, articles, and more recently meeting endless deadlines. Not that she was to be pitied – she loved her job; she was well paid and she was good at it. When she added it all up, taking this sabbatical was probably the craziest thing she’d ever done in her life and she still wasn’t sure quite what had driven it. Not a mid-life crisis, a love affair gone wrong (chance would be a fine thing), or a temporary loss of sanity – all things that had been suggested to her in varying degrees of exasperation by her boss and colleagues. What had triggered her decision to give up work and come and do a residential course at one of the top cookery schools in Ireland was the most ridiculously minor event, but it had brought home the secret embarrassment that, even though she was nearing thirty, she still couldn’t cook. Her sister was an absolute whizz in the kitchen and she’d accepted that she’d missed out on the cookery genes, but in recent years it had become a secret source of shame.

Since reading about the Killorgally cookery school in The Sunday Times magazine supplement, when she’d had a bout of flu, it had become a mild obsession, especially when she realised it wasn’t that far from her best friends Aidan and Sorcha Fitzpatrick, whom she’d been promising to visit ever since they’d left Manchester to go back to Ireland. Surely it was meant to be? Going to cookery school and taking time out from her job was completely out of character, but their proximity was a definite bonus.

Part of her wondered if she’d avoided cooking because it was Mina’s thing and she’d always tried to compensate for Mina’s more impulsive personality by being the opposite to her sister.. The one who kept the family on an even keel and reassured their adopted parents that they weren’t going to end up like their real parents.