I swallow a few times but my voice still comes out as a squeaky remnant of the baby talk. ‘Yeah, sorry. There was a squirrel.’

‘Utterly terrifying.’ His voice is sarcastic but the expression on his face doesn’t change.

‘It made me jump. I’m not scared of squirrels, I just didn’t expect it to hit me in the face.’

‘If you’re here for a viewing, the place is off the market, it was sold a couple of weeks ago.’

‘Yeah, I know. I bought it.’

‘You?’ That eyebrow rises again. ‘You bought Peppermint Branches?’

I nod, wondering if he needs to sound quite so incredulous.

‘Oh, right.’ He sounds a bit taken aback. ‘Are you in the Christmas tree industry?’

‘No, I’m a data entry clerk. I worked for a company that analyses retail sales figures in London until a couple of weeks ago.’

He looks completely confused. ‘So what are you doing here? Some sort of admin?’

‘No. I’m going to run it.’

‘Run it?’ He scoffs. ‘Run it as what?’

‘As it is. As a Christmas tree farm.’

His eyes flick towards the patch of trees in the distance. ‘But it isn’t a Christmas tree farm. It was, once, but it’s been abandoned for over four years now. As the owner of the adjoining land, I can tell you it’s in a hell of a state. How on earth do you intend to sort it out?’

‘Four years?’ I say in surprise. ‘It didn’t mention that on the auction site either.’ I avoid his question because I have absolutely no idea how I’m supposed to sort it out, and I try not to think about the little stone of dread that’s settled in my stomach at his words. It confirms the niggling fear I’ve had since I arrived: that this isn’t a viable business and it will need a hell of a lot of work and investment – work I know nothing about and money I don’t have – to make it viable again.

He ignores my ignoring of his question. ‘You’re not what I expected at all.’

He runs his eyes down me from the cable-knit bobble hat weaved with sparkly thread to my black coat which I now realise is no match for the Scottish autumn air, and my muddy winter boots that were clean before I got out of the car.

‘What did you expect?’ I feel myself bristling, certain this conversation is going down some sort of sexist route.

‘Well, I had this daft idea that someone buying a Christmas tree farm might know the first thing about Christmas trees.’

‘How do you know I don’t? I could be the world’s leading expert on Christmas trees for all you know.’