The local businesspeople were intensely proud of their produce and the homegrown/handcrafted nature of their wares. Elle loved walking on Main Street in the height of summer; eating ice-cream from Scoops, smells of baking from The Grain Store Bakery, fresh fruit from SunBurst Organics and ground coffee from Pebbles Café mingling in the bright air as tourists wandered down to the beach with buckets and spades and brightly coloured towels and inflatables.

In the winter, it was much quieter and considerably greyer in the absence of bright blue skies and the kaleidoscope of beach accoutrements, and populated solely by locals. The only thing she didn’t like about Mulberry Bay was its size and the fact that you tended to meet just about everybody you had ever known.

The entire community had been buzzing about the tall ship for the past few days. Elle had already seen the vessel twice, and had used the fact that her sister had yet to see it as an excuse to get out of their hotel duties early and head down to the beach to watch it leave.

It was coming to the end of the heavy tourist season, and the Bay Hotel had held one of its famed ballroom dancing nights the evening before. Elle and Penny had been in the thick of the organising for days leading up to it. There was always so much to do at the hotel, but even more for any event in the ballroom; polishing the dance floor to a high shine, dusting the enormous glass chandelier, ironing the crisp white table linen, and arranging fresh flowers from the garden in the alcoves, and at reception. As well as a host of other boringly mundane tasks like replacing burnt-down candles in the candelabra, polishing the glassware, and tidying any rogue family-related paraphernalia away from the entrance or common areas.

Still, despite the annoying chores their mother, Anna, set them, Elle had to admit that there was a great buzz and energy about the hotel in the lead up to such an event, and indeed at the event itself. Her mother was in her element with all the preparations, though Elle couldn’t understand all the fuss about the drinks or the food when ultimately people were coming to dance, and generally tried to hide out in the gardens with her dad, who she knew felt the same way. But inevitably Anna roped them all into participating, like it or not. And despite herself, Elle did enjoy the excitement and the fact that the bigger events always seemed to put a twinkle in her ever-busy mother’s eye and an extra bounce in her step.