So Jensen knew how I felt and knew where to find me and yet by Friday afternoon, a week after the radio show, I still hadn’t heard a word from him. The only possible conclusion was that I’d misread the signs. So even though I still felt as if I’d been run over by the Coca-Cola Christmas truck, I knew I had to pull myself together. The grapes were almost ready to be harvested; there were a million and one things to be done and no time to be moping around feeling sorry for myself.

Elsewhere, a celebratory mood still hovered over the vineyard following our triumph on the radio show and that, coupled with the promise of a decent harvest, meant that I couldn’t keep my lovely volunteers away and everyone had put in extra hours all week.

Roger, who must have bolted for the school gates as soon as the afternoon bell had gone, had taken Godfrey and Pippa straight out amongst the vines. They’d each got refractometers and notebooks and were taking readings from all four corners of the vineyard. Matt and Clare, meanwhile, were having a sort-out in the winery and hosing down the tanks ready for the pressing of the grapes – whenever that might be.

When to harvest the crop was keeping me awake almost as much as my heartache over the Jensen/Harvey fiasco. And despite the fact that all the others had been here longer than me, no one else seemed to want to make the decision for me. The consensus was that the longer we could leave the grapes on the vine, the sweeter and juicier they’d be. But we were almost into October. The evenings were getting cooler and darker and the dew was staying on the grapes longer in the mornings. We couldn’t pick the crop when it was wet or damp, picking in the dark wasn’t ideal and a sudden run of bad weather could scupper us completely. I was hoping the readings we took today would help me at least schedule in the first day of harvesting.

I put my coat on, made up a tray of tea and biscuits, and trudged down the path to take it to the team in the vineyard. A strong breeze had picked up since this morning and as I walked past the line of tall slim conifers at the edge, a layer of amber vine leaves at my feet, I heard the unmistakable creak of branches. I looked up to see that the third tree along was looking decidedly brown and a large section of it had broken off from the trunk and was hanging at a precarious angle. I made a mental note to call Adam to come and remove the tree as soon as he could. The last thing we needed was that falling on top of someone.