‘Excellent,’ Sue said. ‘Well, Nick, I will need you at Castle House tonight, at seven o’clock, where we will be going through the Santa basics, call it a sort of Santa boot camp if you will A big black shiny boot camp!’

‘I shall look forward to it!’ Nick bellowed. ‘Blitzen, Dasher, fire up the sleigh! We must away!’

‘You’ve got yourself a certified nutter there,’ Tamsyn said, cheerfully.

‘Yes,’ Sue said. ‘I do hope there isn’t a chainsaw concealed in that present sack. However, at this point in time, short of popping the beard on myself, there doesn’t seem to be any alternative.’

‘He seems harmless enough.’ Tamsyn stretched her hands over her head. ‘I wonder who he is, I didn’t recognise him, did you?’

‘No, but that’s not really surprising,’ Sue said. ‘The pageant brings in loads of Christmas crazies every year. We have one lady who always stays at the Silent Man for the holidays and for the rest of the year cooks Christmas lunch every single day. She’s been on the news. I mean sometimes you’d just want a sandwich, wouldn’t you? Or a bowl of cornflakes.’

‘Sue, before you go, I know you don’t want to think about anything else at the moment, but I have a proposal for you.’

‘I’d have thought you’d made enough proposals for a lifetime,’ Sue quipped, remembering how Tamsyn had stood up in the church and proposed marriage to the vicar after less than a week of knowing him. ‘Look, whatever it is you need help with, then of course the answer is yes. But don’t ask me now, not when I’ve got to get the angels to stop scrapping, pray that Vicky Carmichael can sort out our agoraphobic donkey, and hope that Catriona doesn’t change her mind about Mo being the Baby Jesus, again.’

‘She’s just very keen on accuracy,’ Tamsyn pointed out. ‘She’s a bit concerned it might be a tad blasphemous to have a girl Jesus. Even though Mo looks so adorable in that swaddling.’

‘With the greatest respect to little Mo, no one will know the difference.’

Tamsyn, who had cared for Mo more than anyone else during the first days of her life, after she had been found abandoned in the storm, and was now the infant-besotted adopted aunt, looked rather affronted.

‘There has never been such a shortage of suitable babies in Poldore before,’ Sue rushed on. ‘Seriously. Tamsyn, I think that next year I am going to have to insist that you and the vicar provide one for us.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that.’ Tamsyn squirmed. ‘I’m building a business don’t forget, which brings me to—’