I blush because it’s been a long time since anyone thought that.

‘I’ll start work on a list of businesses to pitch to right away.’ She releases me and goes to hug Noel and then Fergus. Fergus’s hug is a lot longer than either of ours and Noel meets my eyes and raises an eyebrow at the sight.

‘We could make it a competition.’ I feel a bit more confident in the idea now that they haven’t laughed me out of the building. ‘We could ask them to decorate the smaller trees, and then get local schoolkids to judge them, and whoever wins will … I don’t know. Win something. We have to make it worthwhile for businesses to want to get involved. You said there used to be a big tree at the other end of Elffield, right?’

Noel nods. ‘Yeah, but the council cut it from the budget years ago.’

‘And there’s a motorway over there …’ I point in the general direction of where I think the motorway passes, and Noel touches my hand and moves my arm around to the opposite direction. ‘So the tree would’ve been visible from it?’

He gives me another nod of confirmation.

‘So what if we put it back? What if we take one of the biggest Peppermint firs and put it there, and whoever wins this little market competition will get to decorate it. If it’s visible from the motorway, that’s incredibly good advertising, and something a bit different for Christmas. Local businesses would be interested in that, right?’

‘And the motorway exit is just past that spot, so people could pull right off and come in if they fancied it,’ Fiona says.

‘You’re happy to give away all these trees for nothing?’ Noel raises a cynical eyebrow.

‘It’s not for nothing.’ I think of how light the box of postcards and flyers under my arm is now, how happy the stallholders have been to hand them out to their customers, how welcoming everyone has been and how many people have told me how much they loved Peppermint Branches and how happy they are to see it reopening. ‘We help our own round here.’

He laughs at the repetition of words that have been said to me a few times this morning.

‘I know someone on the council, I could have a word, see if they’d support it?’ Fergus says. ‘It’d bring loads of extra people into the market. The businesses could pay something towards it, either an entry fee into the competition or a rental fee for their individual trees, so that would bring in revenue that the market sorely needs, and it would be fun for the whole town with the kids getting involved too. Kids would love judging something like that. I’ll make gingerbread Christmas trees to bribe them into picking mine …’ Fergus lets out a giggle. ‘Oops, did I say that out loud?’