The Penze-Weedells watched as the couple kissed, then hugged, then kissed again before heading towards the front door. Then Claudette turned to her husband.

‘Maurice,’ she said, sternly. ‘You are not going to permit them to leave that van parked on their driveway, are you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know exactly what I mean. We’re not going to sit here and allow the value of our house to be diminished by a hideous van parked outside a neighbour’s property.’

‘I really don’t see what business it is of ours. It’s advertising her business, surely?’

‘Yes, well, there’s an awful lot you don’t seem to see these days. Perhaps you should go to Specsavers and check you don’t have cataracts.’

‘Don’t be absurd, my love. My vision is perfectly good – 6/6 at my recent check-up.’

Releasing the blinds again, she said, ‘Don’t you remember when we bought this house, the restrictive covenants? One of them said that no commercial vehicles were permitted to be parked on the estate overnight.’ She pointed across the road. ‘That is a commercial vehicle.’

‘It’s only a small van.’

‘Small? It’s hideous.’

‘I’m getting a little bit confused.’ He stroked his threadbare dome with his right hand. ‘Do you want me to ask him to paint you, or to put his wife’s van inside their garage?’

‘Both!’ she said emphatically.

‘I think we need to be a little diplomatic. I’m not even sure that covenant applies to vehicles owned by residents.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it does. Let me tell you, I do not intend to spend the rest of my life staring out of my drawing room window at a pink van. If you’re not man enough to tell them, I certainly will. I’ll go over tomorrow and tell them, very politely of course.’

‘Perhaps give them a few days,’ he suggested.

‘A few days?’

He turned and pointed at their Christmas tree. Gaily wrapped presents lay around the base, and fairy lights twinkled in the branches of plastic pine needles. ‘Isn’t this meant to be the season of goodwill?’

She again parted the blinds, peering at the removals men, who were starting to carry furniture towards the front door of the Danes’ house. ‘Yes, Maurice, goodwill. Which means respecting what this estate is all about. Aspirational homes. There are people with a tatty camper van moving in at the end of our road soon – probably travellers – and now we have a pink van opposite. This is all just ghastly. I don’t care if he is bloody Rembrandt reincarnated, they are not leaving a pink van on their driveway.’ She paused. ‘Oh look, a piano, well that’s something, I suppose.’

‘The people at the end of the road are not travellers,’ he said.

‘No?’ she rounded on him. ‘They came in a Volkswagen camper with a yellow roundel in the rear window saying, Nuclear Power – Nein Danke! They’re not travellers?’

‘No, they’re New Age people. Probably lovely and very gentle. You have to remember, my love, that this whole estate will have a mix of people, which is no bad thing.’