Coming Home to Puddleduck Farm

Della Galton

Description

Welcome to the start of a brand NEW series set in the New Forest full of matchmaking and animal magic from Bestselling author Della Galton.
When your heart's broken, all roads lead home...

London City Vet, Phoebe Dashwood, finds her partner Hugh and their boss in a passionate clinch beneath the mistletoe at their works Christmas party.

Heartbroken, she bolts to the New Forest, her childhood home to regroup and soul search.

Being home gives Phoebe the chance to reconnect with friends and family and especially with her fiercely independent gran, widower Maggie Crowther, owner of Puddleduck Farm, and makeshift animal shelter New Forest Neddies.
Deciding not to return to London, Phoebe hunts for work locally, hoping she can also help Maggie, who’s clearly swamped and not coping. But will Maggie accept Phoebe’s help?

Her quest is hampered by stubborn grandmothers, meddling mums, an attractive childhood friend, a real-life Lord, a remorseful ex, and a best friend who’s determined to play matchmaker.

Can Phoebe find happiness professionally and personally in the place she calls home, surrounded by those she loves or does fate have other plans for Phoebe?

What everyone is saying about Coming Home to Puddleduck Farm:

'A delightful story, in what promises to be a wonderful new series, full of fun and animal drama!' Jo Bartlett

'A beautifully written, gentle story about self-acceptance, family and friendship. I hope this will be the first of many visits to Puddleduck Farm.' Sarah Bennett

'Puddleduck Farm will find its way into your heart - a wonderfully cosy read!' Fay Keenan

'A warm, delightful read full of friendship and family with a touch of love on the horizon ... I can't wait to see what happens next at Puddleduck Farm!' Helen Rolfe


'A gorgeous start to a heart-warming new series, filled with engaging characters and a delightful cast of animals. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Puddleduck Farm!’ Jill Steeples

Sujets

• Vie de famille
• Relations familiales
• Mashups
• Feminist
• Holidays
• Siblings
• Women
• Coming of Age
• Sudoeste de Inglaterra
• Gran Londres
• Friendship
• Contemporary history
• Workplace
• New Forest
• Sibling
• South West England
• Woman
• Greater London
• Feminism
• The Women
• City Life
• Animals
• Holiday
• Contemporary
• Family Life
• Romance
• Christmas
• Grand Londres
• Fiction
• London

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 29 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781802808971
• Langue: English

Extrait

COMING HOME TO PUDDLEDUCK FARM


DELLA GALTON
For my dear friend, Gaynor Davies, who inspired and supported my first steps into novel writing, with my love.
CONTENTS



Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35


More from Della Galton

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Della Galton

Love Notes

About Boldwood Books
1

Phoebe Dashwood was still angry as she took the Cadnam turn-off from the M27 and the road changed from motorway to countryside. The air coming through the partially open driver’s window switched from diesel-scented to the fresh, clear, unmistakable winter smell of the New Forest. Usually, this would have been enough to soothe her – that blissful feeling of leaving the urban landscape behind and being in the countryside she loved. Beautiful Hampshire. But not today.
Although she had to admit, she wasn’t quite as angry as she’d been when she’d left London at just after eight this morning.
She glanced at the dashboard clock. Barely two and a half hours ago. She’d made bloody good time. Hopefully, she hadn’t gone through too many speed cameras. She hadn’t been aware of any. All she’d been aware of in the mad dash out of the city that was thronged with commuters and people doing festive things was a desire to get away from Hugh. She’d stormed out of the Greenwich apartment they’d shared for six years with one hastily packed bag. It contained a couple of changes of clothes, her make-up, her shoes, her toothbrush, her phone charger, a small bag of Christmas presents and her credit cards. She was already beginning to regret that she’d brought so little. She was going to have to go back again.
Hugh would know that too. Which was probably why he hadn’t tried to phone her. Typical Hugh. He never acted in haste. Rational was his middle name. It made him a very good vet. Phoebe wondered if he’d gone into work, carried on as usual with his Saturday, and the thought that he may have done exactly that made her feel cross all over again.
This was crazy. In her headlong dash from Greenwich, she’d only had one thought in her head. Get home. Fly back into the warmth of her family, her childhood home, sit by the wood burner in the lounge and sip hot chocolate, while Dad complained about the neighbours’ battle to see who could put up the most Christmas lights. But now she was almost there, she was suddenly full of doubts.
Her parents would be pleased to see her. Of course they would. They wouldn’t question that she was three days earlier than planned. But they would question the absence of Hugh. Her mother would take one look at her face and then hug her and Phoebe knew that all it would take was one hug and she’d crumple and start crying, and once she started she was afraid she would never stop.
She needed to think this through. Work out exactly what she was going to say. She couldn’t just turn up and pour out the whole sorry story to her parents. For the first time, she wondered if she had overreacted. If maybe she should have stayed, talked to Hugh, found out the ins and outs of it all. She wished she was more like her mother, who was a primary school teacher – she taught Year 3. Louella Dashwood was always calm and measured and would never make any decision before she’d thought through every option. Louella Dashwood would not have stormed out of her home with just an overnight bag, no matter what the provocation.
Phoebe relaxed her hands fractionally on the steering wheel and sighed. She needed to decide exactly how much she was going to tell them about what had happened last night and she also needed to stretch her legs – and she was in the perfect location for both.
Making her second impulsive decision of the day, she turned left towards Lyndhurst, instead of right towards Godshill where her parents lived. She was close to one of her favourite places. The Blackwater Arboretum, home to a selection of trees from around the world and part of the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive, was one of the most beautiful areas of the New Forest. Walking through the ancient woodlands never failed to lift Phoebe’s spirits.
Twenty minutes later, she indicated to pull into Blackwater, parked beside a wooden picnic table and got out of the car. She took in a lungful of fresh forest air, as she went to retrieve the walking boots and Barbour jacket she kept in the back of her car. It wasn’t cold. It was typical Christmas weather. Grey skies and a top temperature of eight degrees. Average for the twenty-first of December, according to the weather notification on her phone, which also told her it was the shortest day.
Good, Phoebe thought, as she sat on the open hatchback of her car, lacing up her boots and tucking her long brown hair beneath her hood to stop it getting too wet. There was less time to be sad. If you were going to feel heartbroken, it was definitely better to do it on the shortest day of the year than the longest one.
There was a message from Hugh on her phone. She clicked on to WhatsApp.


I’m sorry. Please can we talk. Ring me when you get this.
Hugh rarely apologised. Phoebe felt her spirits lift fleetingly before they dipped sharply again. Apologising did not make up for the fact that she’d caught him kissing another woman.
Not just any woman either, but Melissa Green – who was the senior partner of City Vets where they both worked, and also their boss.
Melissa Green, who was known openly by her colleagues as Cruella De Vil because of her cut-glass accent, cool demeanour and fondness for scarlet lippy, was a hotshot vet. She was a trust-fund babe – her father, also a vet, had given her the prestigious practice six months after she’d qualified.
Melissa had never seemed to mind the nickname Cruella. Perhaps because it was better to be a glamorous baddie than to have Natalie Portman, girl-next door looks, Phoebe mused. But until last night Hugh had professed to love her hazel eyes and long brown hair. He’d always said he adored what he called her understated beauty. Had that really been true?
During the six years that Phoebe and Hugh had worked for her, Melissa had made Hugh a junior partner. Phoebe hadn’t minded that her boyfriend had got the promotion and not her. It had been Hugh who’d got them both a job there in the first place, thanks to his father’s contacts. Everything was about contacts in London.
Until last night, Melissa had always been utterly professional with them both. She wasn’t the type of boss who did heart-to-hearts, but she ran the practice with brisk efficiency and she was fair, if a little ruthless. City Vets was the kind of practice where the well-heeled of Greenwich brought their pampered pusses and pooches and were happy to pay a fortune for the privilege. Nevertheless, Melissa didn’t charge the astronomical prices that some of the other practices in the area did. She’d always been fair to her customers and her staff alike.
Or at least that’s what Phoebe had always thought. She hadn’t much liked Melissa, but she had respected her. But all that had changed yesterday.
Tugging her coat tighter around her against the damply drizzled afternoon, Phoebe glanced back at her five-year-old red Lexus, a present to herself last year, and set off along the gravel path of The Tall Trees Trail.
The familiar soundtrack of birdsong and the stirring of a slight breeze through the trees and the sound of her boots on the path slowly soothed her. The air smelled of damp earth and old trees and rain, although it wasn’t actually raining, more like a very fine mist, which Phoebe was glad of, because it meant she had the place virtually to herself.
As she walked, she felt the tightness in her shoulders lessen and the headache, which she’d only been half aware was there, slowly fade. It felt so good to be back in her forest. Her forest. Despite the circumstances, the fact that she still saw it as her forest made her smile.
Most of The New Forest, once the province of kings and queens who had hunted deer and wild boar there, still belonged to the Crown. It had been proclaimed ‘a royal forest’ by William the Conqueror and had featured in the Domesday Book, although now it was free to anyone who wanted to walk in an untouched, beautiful ancient woodland. These days, you were more likely to see ponies or donkeys grazing on the patches of heathland than other animals – the rights of common pasture still being recognised.
Her parents had been thrilled when Godshill had become part of the New Forest National Park. Her father was particularly pleased because it had put up the value of their house, which was now, according to the local estate agents, in a ‘very desirable hamlet’.
Phoebe felt herself relax a little more as she walked. She had been brought up here. She and her younger brother, Frazier, had spent their childhood with the forest as their backyard. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it. There were plenty of parks in London. There was a lot more green space in the capital than she’d ever imagined, but it wasn’t like this. London was much tamer and more civilised and there were always people. You were never more than six feet away from a rat in London, or so the saying went. But Phoebe had been much more aware of the fact that you were rarely more than six feet away from a person in London. In fact, six inches was probably nearer the mark.
And, of course, there were the rats of the human variety – hmmm. Her thoughts turned back to Hugh, and with it came the conundrum of what she was goin