Almost immediately, Lily’s phone alerted her to a text from Carola that proved she wasn’t letting Owen distract her from the schedule. Fancy coming up for a sarnie before choir practice?

Very much! Will bring biccies, Lily sent back. After finishing her task and emailing Max as promised, she climbed the stairs to Carola’s kitchen where Owen was pulling on his coat and dropping a kiss on Carola’s blonde bob. Lily just had time to say, ‘Bye!’ before he disappeared out of the door.

Carola was a bit pink after the kiss. ‘Owen’s going to visit his mum. She’s not too well and he says she gets crotchety with visitors.’

‘Doesn’t sound like you’re missing much then,’ Lily joked, giving the older woman a hug. ‘Are you and Owen getting serious? He’s not going to stop you coming to Switzerland is he?’

Despite the obvious stars in her eyes Carola made a mock scream face. ‘Of course not. He’s not going to stop me doing anything – I had enough of that with Duncan.’

Lily dropped down beside Carola at the white glass kitchen table. ‘Extremely sensible. Shall we finalise the programme today so we can send it to the Performing Rights Society and fork over the fee for singing other people’s songs?’

Over tuna sandwiches and custard creams they ummed and ahhed about the respective merits of Cliff Richard’s ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ versus Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmastime’, Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ or Wizzard’s ‘I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday’. Carola wrote down ‘Walking in the Air’ from The Snowman and Lily crossed it out again. ‘That puts a lot of emphasis on the sopranos – us! You might be strong enough but I’m not sure I am.’

Carola nicked back the pen and wrote it in again. ‘Of course you’re strong enough! We don’t have to sing like choirboys to carry it off and we’re spoilt for sopranos anyway because we have Charlotte and Emily. I wish we had another bass to sing along with Neil, personally.’ She tapped the pen on her teeth.