Penny sniffed the air. As well as the faint tang of the sea and a slight odour of motor oil from the boats, there was the distinct aroma of baking bread. ‘You can always nip over and get more bread. The answer to every party.’

After that she surprised Nell with her impressive efficiency in marshalling the troops, using mostly sign language since not many of them spoke English. First she laid out all the equipment on a table and was momentarily dispirited to see very few scrapers or brushes, but the moment she held one up, dozens more materialized out of pockets, shopping bags and in one case, the tight top of a rather glamorous lady in high heels and full makeup.

This unlikely volunteer Penny soon recognized as a type who, despite the sexy and wholly inappropriate outfit, could be found at any fundraising event of a charitable nature in the Home Counties. Bossy, loud-voiced and entirely without scruples in the name of a good cause, she was just what Penny needed. Her name was Demetria and she instantly became translator, group organizer and provider of extremely good coffee from the nearby cafe and bakery.

Soon ladders were assembled and fishermen with scrapers sent up them, while their wives held onto the lower ends and chatted enthusiastically.

‘Oooh,’ Nell breathed, ‘it’s just like that scene in Mamma Mia where the women leave the men up the ladders and follow Meryl Streep and jump into the harbour.’

‘Which of us is Meryl?’ Penny enquired.

‘You are, obviously!’

Penny started doing a mock Greek dance, and then checked herself. ‘Come on, I’ve done this sort of thing before. You have to get the work done before everyone loses enthusiasm.’

Soon she and Demetria had them all scraping and sanding away. Demetria decided no one needed to hold the ladders, so the wives had to do their bit too.

They were just beginning to flag when a kind of flutter ran through the women in the room, like the suspicion a fox might be approaching the hen house.

Penny turned to find not a fox but the lone-wolf mayor, Nikos, had arrived. This time he was in black motorcycle leathers, looking like something out of one of those sexy yet sophisticated French films by Godard or Truffaut.

‘I wondered if these might be of any assistance?’ he enquired in his fluent English. He held out two electric sanders and a fistful of different sanding disks.

The men up the ladders, their arms beginning to tire, fell on them with enthusiastic cries of ‘Daxi! Daxi!’ which Penny was fast recognizing as ‘OK, OK’ and probably the most useful word in the modern Greek language.

He strode over to speak to Penny. Nell watched surreptitiously for signs of that strange intensity she was sure she had witnessed in him when he looked at her friend earlier.

‘You have lost your hairband,’ he observed.

‘I threw it away,’ Penny replied.