‘Here, this’ll wake you up,’ her mother says, handing her a plastic mug of steaming coffee. ‘Shot of gingerbread too, before you ask.’

Amber smiles as she takes the drink. ‘Thanks. Do I have the pleasure of both your company today then?’ she asks as she takes a sip, enjoying the sweet hint of gingerbread she so loves in her coffee at this time of the year.

‘Listen to that sarcasm, Rita,’ her aunt Viv says, shaking her head at her sister. ‘You really ought to take more control of your child.’ There’s a wicked glint in her blue eyes that shows she’s just joking.

‘Child,’ Amber says, shaking her own head. ‘I’m five years away from forty.’

Rita flinches. ‘Don’t remind me. You better not have a party, Len down the road still thinks I’m fifty.’

Viv laughs. ‘Fifty? With those wrinkles!’

‘Wrinkles are the new dimples, don’t you know?’ Rita drawls. They all laugh.

‘Seriously though,’ Amber says, ‘are you going to hang around like you did last week and scare the customers off?’

The two older women look at each other in horror. ‘Us? Scare the customers off? We ran this place for over thirty years!’

Amber can’t help but smile. Truth is, she loves having her aunt and mother there. It makes the day go faster when custom is slow. And while some customers find the two eccentric redheads laughing and joking outside the shop a tad scary, most find them endearing. In fact, they often make a few sales themselves, even if they do sometimes halve the price without checking with Amber first.

‘Anyway,’ Viv says, looking around her, ‘what customers are there to scare off?’

Amber rolls her eyes as she heads to the back of the hut to grab the red paint.

‘You need to get yourself on eBay,’ Viv continues.

‘Or Etsy! That’s the new sparkly thing, isn’t it?’ Rita chimes in.

‘I’ve told you about ten million times, I am not going online,’ Amber says, carefully lifting the tin of paint with her good hand. ‘People need to touch these items, smell them. It’s all part of the experience.’

Viv picks up a small mirror made of shells and sniffs it. ‘Smells like rotting crabs to me.’

‘Not to mention the smell of paint,’ Rita adds, wrinkling her nose. ‘I don’t know why you don’t just stick with the pastels.’

Amber puts her hand on her hip and looks her aunt up and down. ‘Gee, thanks for your support.’

Viv laughs and pulls her niece into a hug. ‘Come on, you know we’re joking around.’