‘It was good enough for your graduation,’ he said, turning his blue eyes on me. I had Dad’s hair but Mum’s eyes. Alan Reynolds had been blessed with dark brown hair and blue eyes, a startling combo he’d passed on to his youngest daughter, leaving me with Mum’s dark brown peepers. I knew they hadn’t done it on purpose but still, it was very genetically selfish.

‘And I graduated eleven years ago,’ I reminded him, the strain of doing the maths showing on his face. ‘Maybe it’s time for a refresher.’

‘Maybe I’ll see what they’ve got in Debenhams,’ he relented as he reached for a forty-eight pack of Mini Cheddars. ‘How’s work going?’

‘Good,’ I said, pushing the trolley on ahead. ‘It’s going well.’

‘You think you’ll stick this one out then, do you?’

My dad had worked the same job since the day he left school. Literally, he finished his last exam and went directly to my granddad’s shop and started training as a plumber. From there, he started to specialize in fitting kitchens and bathrooms and eventually opened his own bathroom design company, Reynolds’ Bathrooms. It wasn’t the most creative name since the dawn of time but it did what it said on the tin. I knew he was still half heartbroken that I hadn’t followed him into the family business but what could I say? Low flush toilets left me cold. And I couldn’t really see Jo leaving Cambridge with a degree in physics to join him on a January jolly to the Kitchens, Bedrooms and Bathrooms Expo in Cologne.

‘I think it’s very romantic, you know,’ I told him as we trundled around the corner and up the chocolate aisle. I lingered in front of a plastic pyramid of Ferrero Rocher.

‘What is?’ Dad asked, distracted by what claimed to be the world’s largest tin of Quality Street.

‘The second wedding.’

‘Oh. Hmm.’