‘Of course,’ I nodded. ‘The timing couldn’t be better.’

Having just about managed to keep my emotions in check while we decorated the lodge, I wondered if planting out the tree would be my undoing.

‘It was far too big to put in one of the carts.’ Ned smiled, with a nod at the tree before correcting himself. ‘Sorry, I mean, sleighs.’

I climbed into the passenger seat and Bandit scrambled to push his way between my feet in the footwell. It only took a couple of minutes to reach the site I had picked out and which Ned had already had his eye on and, as the plantation had been roped off to stop anyone entering without David accompanying them, we were undisturbed.

‘I can see you’ve prepped the site,’ I said, nodding at the large hole which was already dug. ‘Or was that Bandit’s part in all this?’

Ned rolled his eyes and Bandit licked my chin before we climbed out of the cab.

There was a robin hopping in and out of the hole, no doubt looking for a tasty snack. It cocked its head as I walked to the reserve boundary and tipped out the bag of cones, I’d gathered from the decoration boxes.

‘I knew it would take a while to dig out,’ Ned told me as I pushed the empty bag into my coat pocket. ‘So, I thought I’d get it ready. All we have to do now is the planting.’

He made it sound simple, but it wasn’t the easiest of tasks. Fortunately, he had taken the time to wrap the lower branches so we didn’t get too scratched as we manoeuvred it down the ramp and over to the planting hole.

‘Crikey,’ I puffed, as we pushed and pulled and Ned began cutting through the pot, while the robin scolded us for disturbing its foraging. ‘I hope I haven’t given you a hernia for Christmas.’

‘Me too,’ Ned laughed. ‘I’d like to find something far less painful in my stocking from you than that.’

My face flushed because my mind had instantly conjured an image which involved completely different hosiery and such thoughts were far from appropriate given the significance of the occasion.

‘I hate wasting the pot,’ Ned grimaced as he struggled to free the root ball, ‘but there’s no other way of getting this brute out.’

‘That’s my fault,’ I said, feeling bad. ‘I shouldn’t have forgotten about it.’

With another huge tug and with Bandit barking excitedly and skipping around us, the tree was liberated and Ned and I fell backwards on to the ground.

‘Stupid dog,’ said Ned, as Bandit jumped on him and began licking his face.

He pushed him off, scrambled to his feet and offering me a hand, pulled me up too.

‘Right,’ I said, brushing myself down, ‘let’s get planting.’