‘But it’s not necessarily good for business,’ I said, nodding to the window where I could see some customers walking towards the café. ‘I wouldn’t want to scare anyone off.’

Sophie handed me a tissue from a packet in the large pocket on the front of her dress.

‘And what about your father?’ she asked, sounding tentative. ‘Are you close to him?’

I had been, or at least I thought had, but given his reaction to my admittance that I was struggling at work and the subsequent discovery of Mum’s diary, I now didn’t feel close to him at all.

‘I used to be,’ I said, blowing my nose, ‘but not anymore.’

Sophie nodded as the bell above the door rang out and I was grateful for the interruption.

‘We work together in the family business,’ I told her huskily, ‘but I’m not sure we will for much longer. It’s all rather complicated.’

While Sophie served the first customers of the day, I took a moment to regain my composure and look at the changes she had already made. The menu board was now completely re-designed with the ‘dish of the day’ taking up minimal space and the rest divided into sections where customers could list the things they had spotted on the beach, in the rockpools and in the skies as well as highlighting the weather and tide times. There was also another board hanging above the counter with a wi-fi code chalked on to it.

‘It’s great that you have wi-fi in here, Sophie,’ I said while she was preparing drinks. ‘You didn’t mention it yesterday.’

‘It’s not always the strongest of signals, but I’ve had it a while,’ she told me. ‘It was another of my daughter’s ideas. I’ve only put the board up because she nagged me about it on the phone last night. Personally, I wasn’t keen. I want folk to come here and forget about their phones and tablets, for a little while at least.’

She had a point, but I still found myself wishing that I had my phone with me so I could have googled some extra ideas to present to Sam. As much as Sophie hated the thought, having limited or no access to the internet did make modern life pretty difficult.

‘I completely understand,’ I told her.

‘I thought you might,’ she nodded. ‘I’ve never seen you glued to a device.’

It wasn’t the time to explain why.

‘But even so, Sophie, your daughter is right. It’s what folk expect these days and when you get your Instagram and Twitter accounts up and running it will definitely play to your advantage.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you have a hashtag identifying the café and you ask your customers to add it to any photos they upload, this place will be famous in no time.’