I’m totally distracted as the crowd starts to disperse and people come over and quickly snap up the last of my trees. I’m brimming with pride as I watch the polite and patient way he talks to everyone who stops him as he makes his way back over. Everyone here loves him. Every customer, every trader, all the teachers who gather round to congratulate him and the children who nervously come up to shake his hand and ask him questions about pumpkins. Everyone is so happy for him, and I feel it bubbling over in me too. He deserves this so much. A win, a boost that someone other than me thinks he’s amazing at every aspect of his job, some recognition of all the effort he’s put into trying to save this market.

He’s done so much for me. I have no idea what I would’ve done without him. Even when I thought he was a twat – on that first day, he gave me the courage to try to prove him wrong, and then on that first night, he gave me the confidence to stay and really make something of Peppermint Branches. What would I have done if he hadn’t been there? Would I have chickened out because it was too difficult? I wouldn’t have known where to begin without his advice, and now it feels like the start of something special – with the farm and with Noel, and I’m not sure which one I’m more excited about.

***

Noel packs our display trees away and loads the back of the truck with empty crates, even more now than when we started because Iain arrived mid-afternoon with more trees and pumpkins, and another crate of Glenna’s goodies, and they all sold out too.

There’s one bunch of mistletoe left from the second batch and I hang it over Fiona’s stall on my way to the winning tree to turn off the fairylights and the tealights in the pumpkins. I kneel down and crawl underneath the tree and feel around until I can reach the battery pack disguised at the back, trying to avoid taking my eye out with the scented needles, and nearly scream in surprise and bang my head on a branch when I emerge to find Fergus and Fiona behind me. The tree must get a fright too because it chooses that moment to drop a load of needles, most of them into my hair.

‘Oh, sorry, lass, we didn’t mean to make you jump.’ Fergus thrusts a gingerbread wheelbarrow at me to make up for the scare.

‘So there is something going on between you.’ Fiona folds her arms across her chest. She’s trying to look serious but there’s a smile playing on her face. ‘I knew I wasn’t imagining it, stubble rash or no stubble rash.’