‘Well now, that depends if you want to spend it shivering outdoors, or cosied up inside with a spicy drink, warm fire, and even hotter company. I’d suggest that a man of your means can pack whatever the hell he likes and make the location work for him, not the other way around.’

‘Utter nonsense, but thinking outside the box. I like it. Up to second place.’

And so it went on, through the remaining candidates. I was oscillating between freaking out at the hideousness of the group interrogation, and a growing sense of anticipation. I was a woman who knew her weather. I’d spent a good hour in the car updating myself on the latest data. I had a confident answer for every question, even if that was explaining how and why an accurate response was impossible. More of an issue was how to answer. But Henry’s advice way back in Sherwood Forest echoed through my brain. Baxter Bigwood liked me. I would do my best to present my vision for the role, and that meant being my unintimidated self.

Second to last was Henry’s turn. The other candidates turned towards him like a wolf pack.

‘Driver, where’s the closest place I’ll be able to ski on Christmas Day?’

Henry shrugged. ‘I have no idea, I’m the driver. I don’t know anything about forecasting weather.’

‘Honesty, I love it!’ Baxter chortled, to everyone else’s dismay. ‘A man who knows his limits. Some of your competitors seem to be severely lacking in this area. Sixth place.’

‘What?’ Cynthia exclaimed, still languishing on the bottom.

‘Bea Armstrong. Your opportunity to retain pole position by showing the underdogs how it’s done is now. Keeping to the five minutes, if you will, please summarise a correct answer for every question I’ve asked so far.’

‘This is a joke,’ Cynthia sputtered, before plonking her glass on a coffee table and stalking out of the room, pausing in the doorway to sneer, ‘You can stuff your job. I’d rather not work for a mad megalomaniac.’

As Baxter nodded to Melody, who wordlessly made Cynthia’s name vanish from the board, I took a millisecond to steady my nerves and recall the questions, eons of practice automatically sorting the answers into geographical and date order suitable for a weather report. I took a deep breath, stood up and summoned up my best Bea Armstrong smile.

‘Hey, everybody, I hope you’ve had a great Saturday, got done what needed doing and remembered to have some fun in the process. And if you didn’t, well, there’s always tomorrow, right? Why do people keep asking if we’re ready for Christmas when there’s three perfectly good days still to go? Anyway, let’s get down to business. I know you people are itching to know how the weather’s going to affect your plans for a merry Christmas. So, starting with the Highlands…’