Jack still seemed anxious. ‘Do you think we should get a couple more quotes? Does that seem a decent price to you? I’ve never had a thatch before and I haven’t a clue what the going rate is.’

‘I rang Bob to ask him, and he knows of several people who’ve used this Kenny chap. Says he’s as straight as a die and very reasonable, and does a nice tidy job, too. I think we should go ahead and let him start the work.’

Jack agreed, albeit reluctantly, that we would hand over whatever we could afford each month and thanked Mrs Barley. Kenny was to start the work on Thursday. The long-term weather forecast was favourable, so hopefully he would be able to finish it before there was another significant downpour.

‘Well, at least we’ll have the roof done before the baby arrives,’ said Jack, as we lay in bed that night. ‘We’d better keep in Mrs B’s good books from now on,’ he added jokingly. But something in his tone implied he actually meant it.

*

Kenny and two assistants, his sons Shaun and Nathan, both with equally unkempt red hair, arrived at the crack of dawn on the Thursday, and wasted no time in unloading the scaffolding poles and planks of wood they had brought with them. Kenny left them to assemble everything while he went away, soon to return, having reloaded the truck with bags of the new roofing material.

Jack was operating on a cat that morning and had an early start, so after waving him off, still groggy with sleep, I made myself a cup of tea and, wrapped in my dressing gown, went out into the garden to say hello. Jobie trotted beside me. He nuzzled my hand and looked up at the roof expectantly, his tail high and swishing wildly. He was always pleased to see people and I’d never known him to growl at anyone or be anything other than friendly.

Kenny must have still been at the front of the house, but the two younger boys had got off to a promising start. Despite being barely out of their teens, they clearly knew exactly what they were doing. They had begun work on our side of the building first.

Fascinated, I watched as they climbed nimbly up and down the scaffolding that they had erected, stripping away the old thatch, which was then loaded onto a trailer ready to be disposed of.

Between them, they heaved the large canvas bags, containing bundles of reeds, round the side of the cottage from the back of the vehicle and assembled them next to the wall, ready to be hoisted up and inserted into the sparser areas. The sky was clear and the sun already warm, and I was grateful that the weather had turned out as expected, enabling them to make good progress.