‘Everything is very all right, as it happens.’ She heard him chuckle. ‘Actually I’m ringing to tell you some good news. At least we hope you’ll think it’s good news. We didn’t want to tell you at the weekend because we wanted that to be Charlotte’s time but the thing is … You’re going to be a grandma. Betty is having a baby.’

Holly’s breath caught in her throat as tears of joy sprang to her eyes. ‘A baby!’ she gasped in delight. ‘Why, that’s just wonderful. When?’

‘It should be about the end of July,’ he told her and she could hear the joy in his voice. ‘And if it’s a girl we’re going to call her Mary. If it’s a boy it will be George for … Well, you know.’

Tears were openly spilling down her cheeks now. ‘Oh, I can’t wait to tell your father, he’ll be so thrilled,’ she gushed excitedly. ‘I shall have to start knitting straight away. I shall set Ivy on it too. She’s so much better at it than me.’ They chatted for another few minutes then and just as she put the phone down Richard walked in and she rushed to tell him.

‘How marvellous,’ he exclaimed as he hung his hat and coat up and pulled her to him for a kiss. ‘But no one will ever believe that you’re old enough to be a grandma.’

‘Oh, get off with you,’ she laughed as she playfully pushed him away and headed for the kitchen to put the kettle on.

He followed her, happy to see her smiling again. He knew how much she was missing Charlotte and how frustrated she was becoming at not having enough to do but now he hoped that he had found the perfect solution for that too.

‘So,’ he said, smiling at her teasingly, ‘I can have a nice long lie-in with my wife tomorrow.’

She turned from the sink, the kettle still in her hand, to raise a questioning eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’

‘As of today I am no longer a surgeon. I have done my last shift at the hospital.’

‘What? But I thought you said you were far too young to think of retiring when we spoke about it.’

‘I didn’t say I’d retired, did I?’ He grinned as he took the kettle from her hand and led her to the table. ‘I’ve just decided to take another direction that will hopefully involve you and me working together, and I suspect keep you rather busy. The thing is, you see, I thought about what you said about this house being far too big for us now but you not wanting to leave it, so I thought why not put it to good use? And so in two weeks’ time builders will be moving in to make the drawing room into a surgery for me. The hallway will become the waiting room. You will become my receptionist and my nurse and I will become the town’s new GP. The old one is retiring and we’ve been planning this between us for weeks.’