Stepping into Costa for a drink before setting off home, Alfie suddenly gave a great squawk. ‘Look! It’s snowing!’ While fellow Costa patrons gazed out of the window at a fine day, puzzled, the Middletones crowded around Alfie’s iPhone on which he’d brought up a snow cam at Schützenberg that was showing, from a vantage point on a slope above the town, a white layer on every rooftop.

Lily gazed at the grainy picture with bubbling excitement. ‘What excellent timing! Only a week before we get there. I can’t wait.’

Carola tapped at her own phone. ‘Look,’ she squeaked, turning the screen to show Lily a row of clouds and snowflakes. ‘The forecast is for snow for when we get there.’

‘Yay!’ the teenagers all cheered.

Neil was the voice of practicality, eyes smiling through his dark-rimmed glasses. ‘Thank goodness the college minibus already has snow tyres or we’d be forking out a fortune.’

Lily stifled a pang of something perilously close to alarm, remembering that she would be the only driver and it would be down to her if the minibus tobogganed off a mountain. ‘Max says the Swiss are brilliant at keeping roads clear. It’s not like here, where we don’t get enough snow to learn to cope with a Pest from the West let alone a Beast from the East.’

On Monday she telephoned Don, the site supervisor at Acting Instrumental, and arranged to visit the college to have another little drive of the smart but serviceable minibus – white with comfy grey seats – and get an idea of how much luggage space they had to play with. She also handed over a copy of her driving licence and completed the insurance paperwork. Don showed her how the rear three seats, a single and a double, could be removed to provide stowage for luggage for nine people for nine days plus the guitar, keyboard, leads, pedals and attendant PA system. She asked each Middletone to restrict her or himself to one suitcase and one backpack.

On Tuesday evening Lily met Roma, Patsie, Zinnia and George in Peterborough for a family dinner. Lily liked George, with his floppy hair and toothy smile. He was quiet and measured, the opposite of Zinnia’s assertive and impulsive, which probably explained how they’d made their relationship last for three years now. He was the one who’d taken on the pragmatic task of laundering just about everything in their house while Zinnia chivvied up the insurance company and the organisation replacing their kitchen appliances.

On Wednesday Lily went out with Zinnia to buy replacements for smaller items like utensils and plastics that had melted in the kitchen blaze and Wednesday and Thursday evenings there were rehearsals for the Middletones.