Page 1 of Sunrise over Strawberry Hill Farm

1

Flora Barton gave her grandmother a wide smile as she tried to pretend that her heart wasn’t completely breaking into two.

‘Well, these numbers look great, don’t you think?’ she lied in an overly bright tone, gesturing at the iPad screen on the kitchen table.

Flora and her grandmother, Helen, known to most people as Grams, locked eyes briefly before they both looked away. She couldn’t get anything past Grams, so Flora let her fake smile slip as she then turned to their friend Joe with a sigh.

Joe Randall was their neighbour in the tiny rural village of Cranfield in the middle of the English countryside. In addition, he was a great businessman who had achieved success helping quite a few local farms diversify and turn a profit in an increasingly uncertain time in the trade.

But some farms were seemingly beyond help and, unfortunately, Strawberry Hill Farm was one of them.

‘Thanks for all your hard work sorting this out these past few weeks,’ Flora told him. ‘We really appreciate it, especially all the extra hours you had to put in when you’re already so busy.’

She glanced at the clock and saw that it wasn’t even seven o’clock in the morning yet. Joe had managed to squeeze in a very early meeting with them in his packed diary.

Joe gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘I wish I had been able to do more,’ he replied. ‘But at least the decent price we’ve been offered for the plough means that now all your farming equipment has been sold, you should have enough money to pay off your debts.’

‘Just the tractor left,’ said Flora, gulping away the emotion which was threatening to overwhelm her.

They had sold nearly everything to keep Strawberry Hill Farm afloat, but without any crops to tend, what on earth was she going to do now that she wasn’t a farmer any more? It had been her only job since she had left college so her CV was non-existent.

A ray of April sunshine shone through the nearby window as the sun rose above the horizon, lighting up the farmhouse kitchen. After so many months of endless rain, Flora felt as if the weather was mocking her. It was the rain that had done the damage year after year. It had flooded all their fields but two and ruined every crop that they had tried to sow. Without any income from the fields, Strawberry Hill Farm had been running at a loss for a couple of years.

They had let their farmhand go to reduce costs, but even that hadn’t been enough. The only thing left to keep the farm afloat was to sell the farm machinery. That left them just the empty fields slowly being reclaimed by nature and the farmhouse – their home.

Flora glanced over at Grams. Her tiny elderly grandmother was pulling a baking tray packed with various pastries out of the Aga.

When she was little, Flora had been unable to say the word Grandma and so it had become Grams and the nickname had stuck, even amongst her friends.

Grams was eighty years old but had yet to lose the fierceness which had helped her survive a busy life working the land over many years. However, Flora knew that deep down Grams’ heart was breaking too over the fate of Strawberry Hill Farm.

But whatever happened in the future, she and Grams would always remain together. They had a very close and loving relationship, and despite everything that had been thrown at them, they had hardly ever exchanged a bad word.

‘Right, who wants a breakfast muffin?’ asked Grams, whose baking always filled the farmhouse with its sweet tempting aroma. She placed a plate piled high with banana and apple muffins in the middle of the large oak table.

‘Actually, I’ve got another early meeting to go to,’ said Joe, standing up and glancing at the muffins with regret. ‘Shame really as you know how much I love your baking.’

Flora nodded in agreement. Everyone loved Grams’ baking.

‘It’s fine,’ said Grams, reaching up to give him a hug. Her diminutive stature meant that she barely came up to his chest. ‘I’ll pop a few in a bag that you can take with you. You won’t keep that business brain of yours whirring on an empty stomach. The right breakfast sets you up for the day.’

‘Try not to worry about the farm,’ Joe told her, before turning to give Flora a hug. ‘We’ll keep trying to find a way out of all this for you both.’

‘Thanks,’ murmured Flora, grateful for his kindness. She knew that he had done his best. But some things were just not salvageable.

After he had left, Flora looked once more at the plate which was piled high with double the amount of muffins that Grams normally baked.

‘Have you invited the girls for breakfast and not told me?’ asked Flora, raising her eyebrows in surprise. ‘Because I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat all this by myself.’

The girls were her best friends, Harriet, Libby and Katy, who also lived in the tiny hamlet of Cranfield. She had known Harriet and Libby since childhood and Katy had arrived in the village the previous autumn, at which time their cosy threesome had become an awesome foursome of close friendship and support. And Flora needed their support now more than ever.

Despite everything, at least she and Grams still had their home, she reminded herself. Although without any income from the land, even that was now under threat. She glanced around. It was a large but comfortable farmhouse kitchen, full of oak beams, a huge oak table and the homely aroma of coffee and freshly baked bread. The only thing missing was her grandad.

Grams and her husband Bill had lived at Strawberry Hill Farm for all of their sixty years of happy marriage. Flora’s grandad had inherited the farm from his own parents and it had been in the family for almost a century. Having lost her mother to illness when she was only eight years old, Flora had been delighted when she and her father had come to live at the farm soon afterwards. Her grandparents were so steady and loving, in stark contrast to her father, who had sunk into a deep depression after the loss of his wife.

He had first remarried a year later and everything had changed once more. Flora’s new, glamorous stepmother had no desire to live on a farm, nor to be the wife of a lowly farmer either. Her dad’s own reluctance towards inheriting the family farm had turned into a full-blown crisis when he and Flora’s stepmother moved out soon afterwards. That marriage had lasted six months and two more had followed since.

Her father was always seeking out someone to fill the hole left by the loss of Flora’s mother. His search had led him everywhere but back to Strawberry Hill Farm to visit either his parents or his daughter.