‘Oh my god. Chelsea, that’s brilliant!’ I yelp in excitement as my mind is flooded with plans. Renting Christmas trees is a fabulous idea. There must be so many people in the same position as Chelsea who would love a real tree but stick to a plastic one because it goes neatly back into its box in January. A real tree is a big thing to have to find something to do with afterwards. If you can’t plant it in your own garden, you’ve either got the responsibility of taking it to the tip or paying the council to get rid of it for you. What if it could come back here? What if I could deliver it at the beginning of December and pick it up in January? People could rent the same tree every Christmas. They could watch it grow every year. My dad would’ve loved that idea. He was always so sentimental about his Christmas trees. They were planted in the garden every January until we ran out of space. When I was young, I remember him getting the arborists in to cut down the oldest ones which had shot up to thirteen feet tall. In more recent years, the tree would stay up until Mum shouted at him about it being bad luck to leave it up after Twelfth Night on the fifth of January, and then he’d carefully lay it in the back of the car and take it to the tip. He would have been delighted at the prospect of having one for Christmas, sending it back to the farm and having it tagged with our family name, and then having the same tree back again the following year, a little bigger and a little fuller – the family Christmas tree. ‘I’m going to look into this idea. I could block out a whole field for returning trees so they’re all in one place and not confused with the trees that are for sale. It’s too late for this year, but I’ve got ten months ahead where I’ve got to work out the best way to make this a successful business. I need to find out if this is financially viable and what kind of area I could cover. This is such a brilliant idea. Thanks, Chels.’

‘See?’ She says. ‘Girl power, circa the Spice Girls, 1996. You’ve got this. You don’t need some sexy Scottish pumpkin farmer to help you.’

The wind slams against the house again, hitting it so hard that the building shakes, and I watch in dismay as one of the dormant trees in the distance suddenly lists to one side and slowly crashes down onto a bed of silent snow, sending up a storm of mud and snowflakes as the huge rootball at its base lifts from the ground and covers the now horizontal tree with a shower of earth.