I press send then scroll through my contacts, pausing when I reach “Mum Mobile”. It’s been three months since we’ve spoken. She insisted, as she has done ever since I returned from Nepal, that I move home and “give up the charity nonsense and get a proper job”. Oh, and see a psychologist. I’ve told her over and over again that I’m fine, that I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been, but she won’t listen. According to her, I need to go home to deal with my “unresolved trauma”. I don’t know where she got that phrase from; she probably read it in the papers.

I don’t know why I expected her to be different when I got back from Nepal. Maybe because I’d changed, I expected she would have, too.

I tuck my phone back in my pocket and open the van door. Sheila texted me this morning to ask if I’d mind doing a pick-up, as the pet owner only lives a few miles away from my cottage. Usually, the Green Fields inspectors do the pick-ups, but on this occasion it’s just a couple of rabbits from a pensioner who can’t get to the sanctuary to drop them off herself. It’s a simple enough pick-up for me to handle.

Joan Wilkinson greets me at the door with a rabbit under each arm and tears in her eyes. She’s so thin I can see the ridge of her collarbones through her flowery housecoat. Her cheeks and eyes are sunken, her mouth lined with wrinkles, and her sparse grey hair is clipped back on either side of her head with a pink sparkly Hello Kitty hairclip. She has to be at least seventy.

“You from Green Fields?” she asks, squinting at the name badge on my polo shirt then peering past me to look at the van.

“Yes, I’m Jane. I heard you need our help. Rabbits getting a little bit out of control, are they?”

Joan hugs the rabbits closer. One of them, a grey one, objects by pounding her stomach with its left leg. “I can cope, you know. I didn’t want to ring you, but my neighbour made me. She said they’ve been getting into her garden and it’s only a matter of time until her dog goes after one.”

“These two look well.” I gesture at the rabbits she’s holding to reassure her. “Lovely coats, bright eyes, nice and alert. Could I come in for a little chat?”

She eyes me suspiciously, then eases the front door open a little wider with her elbow. “You’re out of luck if you want tea, because my milk’s gone off, but you can have water, if you like.”

“No problem,” I reassure her, with a smile. “I had a cup of tea before I left home.”