‘Where’s everyone else?’ I asked, leaning back as Dad placed a thick, steaming pancake on the table.

‘Mia is with Nana Joy in the living room and Jed and Henry are clearing the snow off the drive,’ Mum said.

‘Have you seen the snow, Auntie Bea?’ Frankie asked, his face beaming. ‘It’s like the North Pole!’

I twisted around to take a proper look out of the large window. Frankie wasn’t exaggerating; the entire garden was covered. Only the tops of the patio pots were still visible, and the poor fawn was up to his belly.

‘How are we going to walk six miles in that?’ I asked, continuing to examine the snowfall. ‘It’s higher than the kids’ boots. The temperature is minus three. With the wind chill it’ll feel like the air is turning to ice crystals inside our lungs.’

‘That’s a little dramatic, Bea. We live in the middle of Sherwood Forest. How do you think Robin Hood got about every winter?’

‘He probably stayed holed up in the Major Oak when the snow was this bad.’

Mum carried on, ignoring me. ‘Let alone five generations of Armstrong! How would we have survived one hundred and eighty years, if a little bit of snow could defeat us?’

‘There’s no way we can walk in that,’ Jed announced, bursting through the kitchen door with a blast of bitter air. ‘It’ll be up to Daisy’s armpits.’

‘Oh, poppycock!’ Mum barked.

‘He’s right,’ Henry added, following immediately behind him. ‘It took us a good fifteen minutes just to get to the end of the drive.’

Mum shifted her gaze to Henry, her scowl instantly softening. ‘Well, if that’s your scientific opinion?’

Henry threw me an awkward look. A dark-red, woolly hat with earflaps was pulled low over his forehead, framing his face in the exact same way that his old haircut had done, making it far easier to see him as the old, super-nerd schoolboy who always seemed to know better than me.

‘Henry is an astrophysicist, Mum,’ I snapped. ‘I’m a professional meteorologist!’

‘I think I’ll count the opinion of someone who’s actually been outside above that of a local weathergirl, given the BBC’s usual level of accuracy, if you don’t mind.’

‘Now, now,’ Dad soothed. ‘It doesn’t matter whose opinion counts for more, since you all agree.’

‘Not true!’ I retorted, still smarting. ‘And I do mind whether you take me seriously, Mum, however hard I wished I didn’t. I might not be turning around the lives of vulnerable children, but what I do means something to a lot of people. And I happen to be damn good at it.’

‘Please don’t swear again in front of your nieces and nephew.’

There was no risk of that because I’d slammed out of the room and was halfway up the stairs before she’d finished the sentence.