A flush ran up Gaz’s entire face. “I do not know how you lot do it,” he said. “They put the cast photos up online yesterday and I spent six hours reading things people said about my face. Some of them were lovely, but one person said he thought I looked like a bloke who would have fat fingers, and now every time I look at my fingers, I wonder how I can possibly move them when they’re so fat.”

“Garamond,” Freddie said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “That is the first lesson: Do not ever read the comments. Someone on the Daily Mail website said that they could see the mites that live in my beard, and I itch every time I think about it.”

“Remember the person who went on that massive tweet-storm about how a fascinator I wore was insufficiently respectful to military veterans?” I asked.

Next to me, Bea snorted. “Her suggestion was a mantilla. People would have thought you’d lost your mind.”

“The last time I left the house, a blogger wrote an entire article about how my casual trousers are too wide,” Nick added. “She used a lot of caps lock.”

“They were too wide,” Lacey said. “I’ve been telling Bex to throw those out for months.”

Nick looked aggrieved. “I think they’re jaunty!”

Lacey shook her head. “No. You look absurd in them.” She took another sip of tea and grimaced. “I am so tired of tea. Maybe I should try some wine again, in friendly confines, and pump and dump later. We have enough milk.”

At this, Danny’s eyelids fluttered again, and he made a more demanding noise, as if he knew his food supply was the topic of conversation and he was getting concerned.

“I’ll warm some milk now,” Olly said, leaning over to take the baby.

“Nonsense, let me,” Cilla said, standing up. “I’ll feed him, too. You still need a break, and Nick’s gone well over his allotment of baby time.”

“Yes, good idea. You should take him,” I said, a little too quickly. “Nick, uh, will get all cocky about it if you don’t.”

“Oh, right, that’s very nice,” Nick said as they did the awkward dance of transferring Danny from one adult to the other. “First Lacey insults my trousers, then I lose the only person in this family who hasn’t been rude about me.”

“I haven’t been rude. Yet,” Freddie said, leaning in and popping two of Gaz’s potato crackers into his mouth. “A bit of pepper on these, I think, Gaz.”

“That’s because you also have a pair of trousers that are too wide, and you know it,” Lacey offered. “Those green ones. They’re ridiculous. Burn them.”

Freddie chuckled, and turned to Olly. “Once, we were at a club and she turned to me on the dance floor and screamed, ‘Those are practically bell-bottoms!’”