Chapter 3
Mam and I decided to head north and, thirty minutes into the journey, I spotted a signpost on my left.
‘What are Rowanbridge and Mapleton like?’ I asked.
‘I’ve never been, which seems daft when they’re so close. I’ve heard they’re pretty. Shall we?’
She turned off and drove along a wide country lane flanked by fields, some of which contained sheep or cows.
After ten minutes or so, we reached Rowanbridge and headed for the car park.
A sign near the entrance displayed the words ‘Welcome to Triple Trees’ above a map of the area.
Triple Trees consisted of three villages – Rowanbridge, Birchwood Rigg and Mapleton – and various other visitor attractions including a farm with heavy horses, a campsite and a brewery.
‘I’d love to visit the farm,’ I said, removing a leaflet from a plastic holder and flicking through it. ‘There’s a café there – might be nice for tea and cake.’
The familiar clip-clop of hooves drew our attention to the road where a woman and a teenaged girl were passing on horseback, waving their thanks to a motorist who’d slowed right down and given them a wide berth.
‘I love Triple Trees already,’ I said to Mam. ‘Horses trekking through the village and a heavy horse farm. Perfect.’ Anywhere horses were found instantly captured my heart.
Rowanbridge was a small village of picture-perfect stone cottages with pristine front gardens arranged along the main street and a few side roads.
In the centre was a shop combined with a café but a sign on the door said it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays during the winter months.
Outside was a large paved area which I could imagine was full of tables and chairs during the warmer weather.
Mam and I wandered to one end of the village where a snowdrop-flanked woodland trail ended with a fork. The left path dipped down to a pretty church and the right took us towards a large manor house.
‘YGT,’ I said, reading the large letters on a bright orange sign outside. ‘I wonder what that stands for.’
Mam shrugged. ‘Not a clue. Can’t be a hotel or it’d say that. Maybe it’s a company headquarters.’
‘Maybe.’
We retraced our steps and headed towards the other end of the village, passing an art gallery, which was also closed. A sign beside the gallery pointed to ‘Rowanbridge Creative Hub’ so we followed it down a winding lane lined with cherry blossom trees.
‘It’ll be stunning walking down here in the spring when the blossom’s out,’ Mam said.
‘Ooh! I wasn’t expecting that,’ I said when we reached the end.
Ahead of us were nine large wooden huts arranged in a semi-circle with nine curved benches opposite them, creating a circle.
In the middle was a water feature and several planters.
Blinds were pulled down on the double doors of all the huts but the signs above them indicated an eclectic range of goods for sale including greetings cards, jewellery and fudge.
‘We’ll have to come back over Easter when everything’s open,’ Mam said as we set off back to the car. ‘It’s lovely.’
Inside Mam’s car, I opened out the leaflet and studied our options.
‘Everything at Birchwood Rigg is closed until Easter too and so’s the heavy horse farm but the pub in Mapleton’s open all year round. Let’s head there.’
We passed Birchwood Rigg on the way – although we couldn’t see much of the village from the main road – and arrived in Mapleton shortly after, parking behind the village hall.
The pub – The Otter’s Pocket – was beside the village hall and a man exited the front door as we approached, placing an A-board outside announcing food now being served.
I’d checked the weather forecast in the car and light showers were expected this afternoon so Mam and I decided to walk round the village before lunch to avoid the rain.
Opposite the pub and village hall were a tearoom, general store and a couple of gift shops.
The village was bigger than Rowanbridge but the houses had the same charm and were all well-kept.
At the far end we reached the ruins of Mapleton Castle before the road dipped down to the river.
We were toying with whether to explore the castle before eating when Mam’s stomach growled, making the decision for us.
‘I could live here,’ I said to Mam after we’d placed our food order in The Otter’s Pocket. ‘It’s so pretty.’
‘Then move here.’ Mam fixed her eyes on mine, her expression serious.
‘I can’t do that!’ I said, but my voice lacked conviction.
Mam raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Give me three good reasons to stay in Twyford.’
This time last year, I could have rattled them off easily – my husband, my beautiful home, my amazing job – but Laurie was divorcing me, my home was under offer and I’d just lost my job.
The only reason to stay in Twyford was my best friend and she was so angry with Ross Langley for dismissing me that I couldn’t imagine a long-term future for her at Langley Lodge.
As there were no other vacancies in the area, she might have to move away to secure a job working with horses.
‘For a start, Jude’s there,’ I said, racking my brain for a second reason but struggling. All I could think of were reasons to leave.
‘The pair of you have been best friends since you were eighteen,’ Mam said, ‘so I think it’s safe to say you’ve got a strong friendship.
I know how much you’ve loved having Jude in the same village as you, but you made it work for years when she was three hours away in Exeter, so you’ll make it work again if one of you moves. ’
Jude and I had met as freshers after being allocated rooms next door to each other in a halls of residence called Towers at Loughborough University.
Having both been raised on farms and sharing a passion for horses, we’d bonded instantly.
When I graduated, Jude stayed at Loughborough to get her post-graduate certificate in education before moving to Exeter where she taught geography for the next fifteen years until I introduced her to Hugo Ingliss – my boss at Silvervale Equestrian Centre.
My gut feeling that they’d hit it off had been spot on.
They’d married a year later and Jude left teaching to work at Silvervale which Hugo ran with his mother, stepping up as manager after his mother retired.
For several years, everything was good and even when Hugo and Jude amicably separated after acknowledging they had a friendship driven by a shared passion for horses rather than a romantic relationship, she never regretted the relationship or the move.
They’d remained friends and continued to work well as a team until the takeover from Langley Lodge.
‘With Maddie heading off to university in September, don’t you think it’s time you did something for you?’ Mam said. ‘And might that something be moving closer to your family who love you and miss you so much?’
My family had never put any pressure on me to return home after graduating – something I’d really appreciated – but Mam raised a great point. Other than Jude, what was there to keep me in Twyford now that my life had spectacularly fallen apart?
I picked up my phone and clicked into a property search app. ‘Don’t get your hopes up because moving home is a huge decision, but it can’t hurt to look at what’s for sale in Triple Trees.’
With no knowledge about the local housing market, I didn’t set a price parameter but I did restrict the search radius to the immediate area only. A handful of options came up and my eyes were drawn to the one at the top.
‘That farm with the heavy horses is for sale,’ I declared, clicking into the first photo to enlarge it and moving onto the chair beside Mam so we could both clearly see.
‘What a beauty,’ she said, admiring the Shire horse in the foreground.
As I scrolled through the rest of the photos of Hazelwick Farm, my heart raced.
The café looked immaculate, the farmhouse was beautifully decorated and the setting was spectacular.
The details said that visitors were invited to wander round the farm, meet the heavy horses, feed the pygmy goats, partake of refreshments in the café and even stay in the holiday cottage.
‘I could use the heavy horses for my therapy sessions and you could run the café,’ I said. I was kidding, of course. Or was I? How incredible would it be to own somewhere like Hazelwick Farm and run my animal-assisted therapy business from there? How wonderful would it be to work alongside my mam?
Mam didn’t say anything as she scrolled back and forth through the photos. Eventually, she placed my phone down on the table.
‘We should make an appointment to view it.’
‘Mam! We can’t waste their time like that.’
‘Who says we’d be wasting their time?’
I stared at her, eyes wide. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying you’re not happy, I’m not happy, we could both do with a fresh start and this could be it. I think we should go into business together.’
Looking at my mam, her eyes shining with evident excitement, and glancing back at the phone screen, my heart pounded. Could we really do it? Could we buy a farm and run it together? At that moment, I couldn’t think of a single reason why not.