Tara knew it would be a good night, not least because everyone in the village was determined that it would be. The hall represented everyone’s renovated hopes and dreams: dried out, repurposed, ready to send out new shoots. Keith’s design had taken the bones of the modest building and opened its heart out to the sky, creating something solid with oak timbers that would deepen and darken with time, but at the same time filling it with glass and space and light. It was a building that would grow into its own landscape. Outside there was a community vegetable garden, and wildflower beds for bees, and a few small wooden boats positioned in the young new trees which would, as they grew, eventually lift the boats high up into their branches like arks, to celebrate the magical re-rising of the hall after the floods.

Nice touch, Dad, Tara had thought as the young oaks were dug in. Very holistic.

Inside, her favourite new addition was the exhibition space running down the long wall of the open corridor, ready for the community to tell their stories. The first display was the saga of the local floods: ‘After the Rain’, told by the people who’d lost wedding albums and washing machines, the older residents who’d been rescued in dinghies, and the schoolchildren who’d learned about dinosaurs in the sports hall while the school was hosed out. It was the story of loss and destruction, but also of community spirit and kindness, generosity and humour in the face of crisis.

It was Tara’s idea. She’d asked each of her clients if they could write something about their experience, or share a photograph that summed up how they felt about the night of dark waters. She’d had some interesting responses.

The Bannon family had gone for a dramatic crayon interpretation of events, including the pyromania incident and their grandma’s cat’s near-death experience. After intervention from David, Rhys was responding to counselling, and Sian had had her baby without further complications, other than Gareth buying a drum kit to celebrate.

Grace Jordan and Harrison shared a photograph of Harrison’s miracle guinea pigs, Fluff and the still twitchier than normal Peppa, Noah’s Ark survivors. Dorrie and Elsie Cogan, the elderly evacuee sisters, made paw prints of Sukie the dog. And Mrs Cartwright provided a photograph of her cat, little Bobby, who eventually resurfaced in Yarrold, six months and four kilos later.

And, of course, now Tara had some experience of her own to share.

Her contribution was a photograph Keith had taken of Tara and Toby in their wellies, trousers rolled up, carrying Molly through the last of the water in the cellar. They were laughing, and Lloyd was on the stairs behind them, his mouth open in a silent bark. A ‘do you remember?’ story, linking the three of them for the rest of their lives.