‘So, you’re awake,’ said her mother, coming into the room with confidence now.

‘No, definitely asleep,’ mumbled Becky, thinking, how did she know?

‘I could always tell when you were pretending,’ said Kate brightly. ‘Your eyelids flicker. Same as when I had to get you up for school when you hated Miss Hanbury.’

‘She was a witch,’ said Becky. ‘Expected me to know my twelve times table and I was only nine.’

‘You can’t stay in bed all day, it’s gone ten! And I have a surprise for you!’

‘Can it wait?’

‘Most definitely not!’ Kate flung the curtains open triumphantly on ‘not’.

Becky cried out and buried her head deeper under the duvet. ‘Mum, that is not funny.’

‘Don’t you want to see your surprise?’

‘It’s outside?’

‘Yep.’

‘Therefore, it requires me to leave the bed.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t want it in here. Come on,’ Kate urged. ‘I take it that’s a hangover,’ she said, disapprovingly. ‘This, I promise, will cure it.’

Knowing she’d get no peace unless she did as she was bid, Becky slowly sat up and put both feet on the carpet. Then, holding onto the side table, she hoisted herself up as if she were an invalid, and shuffled over to the window.

The once-grey world had turned into blinding white and vibrant blue, and she half expected a celestial chorus to cascade down from the heavens. At some point in the night the sleet had turned to snow and the street was covered with a very commendable layer of the stuff. This wasn’t a vague flurry that was already melting, this was a deep, ‘I mean business’ chunk.

‘We’re making a snowman!’ said Kate. ‘And a snowdog!’

‘I don’t have any gloves,’ said Becky hastily, heading back to bed. She wasn’t quick enough. Kate had darted in front of her.

‘We’re not wasting this day. I have a spare pair. Spring sale 2007 from the garden centre, remember?’

Becky looked at her mum’s earnest, excited face and couldn’t help smiling. Maybe some breakfast would help.

The miracle of porridge didn’t fail and forty-five minutes later, Becky was at the front of the house following her exuberant mother’s new footprints in the snow.

‘Snow angel?’ said Kate.

‘Come on, that’s just some cheesy thing they do in the movies. The reality is cold, wet stuff seeping up the back of your jacket and a freezing arse.’

‘Someone’s a bit grumpy this morning.’

‘Not at all. I am enraptured by this Dickensian vision of perfection.’ A snowball landed on the side of her head. ‘Oi!’ Becky pounded together a handful of snow and threw it back at her mother, who squealed. It missed.

‘OK, truce!’ shouted Kate, arms in the air. So, Becky started on a snowman, rolling a ball of snow around on the ground so it grew bigger and bigger.

‘How was your night?’ asked Kate.

‘Great. Good food. Weather atrocious and no cabs so we had to wait at his place for a bit. He’s got a really nice flat in Clapham. Right opposite the Picturehouse. Lots of fancy furniture. He’s even got bamboo flooring.’