Things moved quickly and before I knew it, I was staying over in his flat in Glasgow a few nights a week, which overlooked the Clyde. But working for the ad agency was taking its toll and when I decided that I wanted to go for the reporter job at The Silver Ness News, he wasn’t best pleased. “A parochial little paper,” he’d smirked. “Haven’t you got loftier ambitions than that, L?”

In time, he was getting the bigger, more prominent stories at the radio station and often moaned that I had taken nine steps back, returning to Silver Ness, rather than moving forward.

In the end, he just announced one snowy night in January over a bottle of Chianti, that he had applied for and been offered a TV news reporter job in the Midlands and that was that. Over. Done.

He had slipped his hand in mine, tipped his head to one side like a pet budgie, and slimed that he would always love me, but he wanted to break into TV and he knew I would understand!

I remember travelling home on the train that same night with random items I’d left over in his flat – toothbrush, shampoo, deodorant, underwear – in a carrier bag and my mascara streaming down my face.

I gave myself a mental shake to loosen the pictures of Miles floating around in there. He didn’t deserve the head space.

“That one is all teeth and coiffed hair,” remarked Dad not long after we split up. “I was never keen on him. He’s got about as much depth as a puddle.” He was proved to be right.

As I drove towards Drummond and Merry Wood, I rehearsed in my head what I was planning to say to the bad-tempered woodland woman, if she happened to be on patrol again.

I suspected she wouldn’t be forthcoming. She had been off-hand and rude during our first encounter, so I didn’t see that changing any time soon. The fact she also knew I was a journalist wouldn’t help my case either.

The country lanes slid past in a haze of streaky early evening sunshine. The hedgerows rustled and shimmied in the autumn chill.

The fields Harley had been charging through loomed up ahead on the right-hand side of the road with the trees, some still clinging to their leaves by their fingertips, shadowing them.

I eased my car into the kerb at the picnic area again and clambered out, recalling the house was a good distance ahead and through the woodland facing me.

I began to make my way through the rushing grass, striding with a confident purpose that I didn’t feel. I didn’t think for one minute that the intimidating woman would be willing to tell me anything, but I wasn’t a proper journalist if I didn’t at least try.