Neither brother answered and I wondered if the pair bickered a lot. I know Joe wasn’t happy that Charlie wouldn’t take on board any of his suggestions for the farm and I wondered if the elder brother resented what he might consider interference from the sibling who was rarely around.

By the time dinner was served Bruce was practically sitting on my lap and when I took my seat at the table and accepted the glass of red Joe offered, he somehow squeezed himself under my seat and rested his heavy head on my feet.

‘I did wonder,’ said Joe as he lifted a gargantuan pie out of the Aga, ‘if it was going to be too hot for this today.’

‘So did I, to be honest,’ said Charlie, as he deposited three large tureens of vegetables down the middle of the table.

He sounded far happier now he was faced with a plate the size of a platter.

‘Did you make this?’ I asked Joe, eyeing the crisply baked pie which was decorated with golden pastry leaves.

‘I did,’ he said proudly, then added with a frown, ‘oh god, you aren’t vegan or vegetarian, are you?’

‘No,’ I laughed, ‘I’m not. I thought you’d remember that from the afternoon tea we shared and the fish and chips we ate at the seaside.’

‘Oh yeah, of course,’ he said, sounding relieved. ‘This isn’t really as fancy as it looks.’ He added, with a self-deprecating nod to the table.

‘It looks pretty fancy to me,’ I told him.

‘You haven’t tasted it yet,’ said Charlie with a wry smile as he dug in.

Joe ignored him.

‘It’s one of Mum’s recipes,’ he said to me instead. ‘The filling is cooked in the slow cooker all day and then it’s a quick assembly job with a packet of shop-bought puff pastry, before finishing off in the oven.’

My stomach grumbled loudly in response and we all laughed, except for Bruce, who was still shaking under the table.

The meal tasted every bit as delicious as it looked and accompanied with the fruity, warm wine I was left feeling replete, relaxed and a little sleepy, in spite of the storm outside raging louder than ever.

‘You stay where you are,’ Joe insisted, as I made a move to gather the empty plates. ‘Charlie and I are used to clearing up.’

‘We’ll get washed up and then I’ll go back out to check the yard,’ said Charlie.

I didn’t much like the thought of him going out into the storm and I wasn’t much looking forward to the journey back to Wynmouth either. That said, if I couldn’t prise Bruce off me, I wouldn’t be going anywhere anyway.