‘We wanted a garden. Both Nick – that’s my husband – and me. I was pregnant with the boys. We lived in Clapham at the time – nice common but it’s not the same as having all this in your back yard.’ Grace nodded out of the kitchen window.

Outside, it was already beginning to turn dark, the winter sun giving up its weak efforts, having barely got above the height of the dark, barren trees, whose branches were now silhouetted against the purpling sky. Becky could see the attraction – even in deepest winter there was a beauty in all that space. Beyond the garden was a large field patterned with fallow rows that still held the remnants of a recent snow flurry, the soft whiteness now turned to an icy filigree.

‘Wow, fields right outside your window,’ said Becky.

‘Yes, we’re very lucky.’

‘Crops?’

‘Uh-huh . . .’

‘Which?’

‘All sorts. Wheat, oilseed rape, winter beans. They all look beautiful, the colours on such a large scale, the bright-yellow rape, or my favourite is the wheat when it’s got a bit of height and the wind makes patterns in it.’

‘Is it ever left for pasture?’

‘Not since we’ve been here,’ said Grace, putting the scones in the oven.

‘Do you manage to spend much time outside? Ever see it get planted – or the crops reaped?’

‘Oh yes, all the time. I’m a right country bumpkin now – the boys too. We know all the stages in the crop cycle.’

Becky smiled. ‘Oh yeah? Such as?’

‘Well, you know, ploughing, then sowing, then spraying. Then you just keep your fingers crossed for the weather. If it’s a dry spring the plants are never as big.’ Grace gazed out the window. ‘Yes, we’re always outside. That’s what we came here for.’

‘So, the boys enjoy it?’

‘You can ask them yourself.’

Becky looked up with keen interest as two five-year-olds came running in, clutching contraptions made of Lego.

‘Boys, this is Becky and she’s going to write about us in her newspaper,’ said Grace.

‘Why?’ one of them immediately demanded.

‘Because you have what seems like a huge amount of fun in the country,’ said Becky, ‘and I’d like to know about it.’ She bent down to the boy’s level and studied his face, his short hair – shorter than his brother’s. Other than that, and the fact he was the tiniest bit smaller, they were identical.

‘I have pets,’ said the boy.

‘No, we don’t. Not real ones,’ said his brother.

‘Yes, I do,’ retaliated the smaller boy.

‘Whoa, easy, boys,’ said Grace. ‘Arnie, here, likes to keep worms.’

‘We were going to get a dog but then Arnie got ill,’ explained the other boy, John.

Becky knew this, as she’d already heard it from a neighbour in the village, but she pretended to be surprised.

‘He’s had leukaemia,’ said Grace, ‘but is in remission now.’

‘Does that mean we can get a dog now, Mummy?’ asked Arnie.