Hannah nodded. Her biggest anxiety was facing Conor this morning, although she was equally relieved that her cooking would not be receiving headline billing. It might have improved no end in the last few weeks but her presentation skills were still woeful and she certainly didn’t have the flair for cooking that marked out Fliss and Jason. They had that star quality. Meredith and Alan were both very good cooks but not as ambitious or driven towards perfection as the other two, although Meredith’s presentation was beautiful and she loved her prettifying as she called it. Hannah and Izzy, while now more than competent, were never going to set the world’s Michelin star restaurants on fire in the way that the two youngsters probably would one day. It suited her just fine to be a general dogsbody for the day.

Once Adrienne had given her orders for the morning, Hannah and Izzy found themselves carrying bundles of crisp white tablecloths out to the long greenhouse that stretched down the middle of the orchard, separating the apple trees from the pear trees. The entire fifty-foot length had been turfed and a series of trestle tables ranged down the middle.

Despite the sky being overcast, a flat grey that promised a shower or two, it felt quite muggy, so all the windows and vents of the greenhouse had been opened.

‘Wow, this is going to be quite something,’ said Izzy, clutching the white cloths as she looked all the way down to the end of the greenhouse.

‘Ah, there you are, girls,’ said Bridget, striding forward to meet them in a pair of teal dungarees, her head bound up in a bright-yellow scarf, looking a little like the grandma of a member of Little Mix. ‘You’ll help me lay up the tables, all seventy-five place settings.’ She took a couple of the cloths and within a second shook one out, letting it billow like a sail as it fluttered down over one of the tables. Hannah and Izzy followed suit and, in no time, each of the tables was covered.

‘Right. Next, table decorations. Come with me.’ Without breaking her stride, Bridget marched across the field, through the herb garden and the courtyard to the farmhouse kitchen.

‘Someone’s been busy,’ said Hannah, taking in the forest of wildflowers assembled in glass jars on the big pine table.

‘Franklin and Niamh were up at dawn collecting foxgloves, hedge parsley, lady’s bedstraw, and speedwell.’ She pointed to tall pink flowers, blousy white ones, tiny yellow ones and ever smaller pretty blue ones. ‘They’re to go on the tables, mixed with the candles.’ With a nod she motioned to the jam jars on the counters, each with a sturdy, fat candle and twisted with wire handles around the tops. ‘Those ones hang from the metal struts in amongst the fairy lights.’ She grinned. ‘We’re big on fairy lights.’