Friends of missing woman Nicola Bulley are hoping for a “lightbulb moment” as they retrace the route she walked when she disappeared exactly a week ago.

Emma White told Sky News: “I hope today’s the day – for Paul, for the mum and dad, for the sister and for those girls.”

“It’s just that lightbulb moment – anything you think that’s small, just come forward… In this day and age how can someone just disappear. It makes no sense?”

People are carrying pictures of Ms Bulley and holding signs by the roadside in the hope it will jog someone’s memory.

Friends admitted that hopes were “diminishing” but that they had to keep on hoping for a breakthrough.

“I go back to those two little girls missing their mummy,” said Ms White. “That’s why we’re here – any information to give them hope.”

Ms Bulley’s partner, Paul Ansell, said on Friday morning that he is “staying as strong as I can” and focusing on supporting “the girls”.

The search is continuing for the mother-of-two, whose phone was found still connected to a work call, with her dog running loose.

She was last seen on 27 January at about 9.15am on a path by the River Wyre in the Lancashire village of St Michael’s on Wyre.

Ms Bulley had just dropped off her two girls, six and nine, at school.

Meanwhile, a potential witness in a red coat has now been identified, police have said.

The woman reportedly told the Daily Mail she didn’t see anything and had already spoken to police earlier in the week.

Officers are still treating it as a missing person investigation and say there’s no evidence of outside involvement.

The river next to where she was walking is being searched but nothing has been found.

Ms Bulley’s sister and father told Sky News they have been “stuck in a nightmare” since her disappearance and that “her children need her home”.

Louise Cunningham told Sky News: “We’re going round and round in circles trying to piece together what could have possibly happened.

“It’s like she’s just vanished into thin air. We just want her home, we need her home, her children need her home. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.”

Her father Ernie Bulley, 73, spoke of the “pain” the “close-knit family” are feeling.

“This has just emptied our lives at the minute, we just feel so empty,” he said.

“We appreciate everything everyone is doing to find her. The police have been brilliant, the local community has been outstanding. But at the end of the day we just want her back.”

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