I am definitely recovering, I realise; I was being truthful when I told Nick that I’m no longer angry with Andy. I used to compile mental lists of reasons why I was glad we’d split up, in an attempt to haul myself through the heartbreak. For instance: the ‘I think you’ll find’ thing. And the way he sometimes referred to his stomach as ‘my tummy’, as in: ‘My tummy really hurts’ (said in a whimpery voice whilst rubbing it with a pained expression). The way he’d ask: ‘Do we have any Rennies?’ That was another thing that drove me mad: this constant asking if we ‘had’ things, as if I were Monitor of Household Medicines (wasn’t he supposed to be the doctor in the house?) and could see into cupboards without opening them. And now it’s just me, with no adult male moaning about his acid reflux, or complaining that Shelley, Isla and I were ‘pretty raucous’ when we had an evening together around our kitchen table.

Somehow, since Andy left me, I’ve kick-started this project that seems to be well on its way to becoming a real event – and I’m the one driving it, ably assisted by the terribly handsome man who is sitting in my kitchen.

‘So, what else needs to be done?’ Nick asks now, finishing his mug of tea.

‘We still need more clothes,’ I reply. ‘There are certain key pieces that I haven’t been able to source yet.’

‘Really? What are you looking for?’

‘The Pippa poncho, for one thing.’

‘Oh, I remember that.’ He beams at me. ‘Featured on the cover of Honey magazine, I think it was. For years, we had the image blown up to poster size and framed on our living room wall. Mum wore hers constantly throughout a whole winter, until there was some disaster with it getting trapped in a car door and dragging along in the road.’

‘A hazard of the poncho, I’d imagine,’ I snigger.

Nick smiles. If he wasn’t my friend’s son, and we didn’t have business to attend to, I might … well, I might allow myself to have proper crush on him (a crush, at my age! Who’d have thought I was even capable?). I might even flirt a bit, like I did with the handsome tiler who came to do our bathroom, according to Andy, who kept teasing me: ‘Oh, look – we’ve got Bourbons all of a sudden. Are they his favourites?’ Yes, I would definitely flirt, if Penny hadn’t been giving me the occasional bemused look, and bringing him round to my house, parading him, as if anything is likely to happen.

‘I’m happy to do lots of phoning around,’ he says now, ‘but wish I could do more to help. What about the practical stuff? Is there more to do there?’