Age shall not wither us, but sometimes it feels a close-run thing, particularly if your joints are grinding so painfully that even the keys of your beloved piano represent torture; or if your house is suddenly over-run with an insouciantly carefree younger generation; or if wildly misplaced loyalty means that you are tethered to your hateful but dramatically enfeebled husband. Such are the terms and conditions that life has dictated to, respectively, Marta, Ruth and Diana, three friends whose Tuscan retirements are distinctly more constrained and convoluted than any of them would wish.
