Coming Home For Christmas: Warm, humorous and completely irresistible!

‘There’s always I’m a Celebrity,’ joshed Marianne.

‘Oh please,’ said Cat, rolling her eyes. ‘I might be desperate, but I’m not that desperate.’

‘Sorry,’ said Marianne, looking stricken, ‘it was only a joke.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Cat. ‘I’m sure that’s exactly what Paige and Ruby will be demanding I do next, they’re obsessed with celebrity tv shows.’ She paused and sighed heavily. ‘Maybe it was meant to be, I do seem to be spending more and more of my time with munchkin here, so maybe it’s a good thing the work’s dried up a bit. I don’t think I’d have time anyway.’

Munchkin, who was sitting in her buggy drinking milk, obligingly smiled revealing a milk-splattered nose. Cat automatically wiped it with a tissue, which elicited a cheering giggle. There was nothing like a baby’s laugh to cut through your gloom.

‘You can’t mean that surely?’ said Pippa.

‘No, I don’t,’ grinned Cat ruefully. ‘I just feel like suddenly, I’ve become old overnight. Since my miscarriage, I’m finding it harder and harder to lose weight, I feel like I’m sagging in the middle, lacking the energy I had. Plus I keep finding grey hairs on a daily basis. I get much ruder comments on the internet than I used to. And to add insult to injury, I’ve just found out I need reading glasses. I look at Sienna Woodall, and I can see why they want her. She’s sexy, voluptuous, and younger than me. Hell, I’d pick her over me. Looking at her, and looking at me, I feel, I don’t know – invisible.’

Lou Lou gurgled happily in the buggy. She had a toy rabbit which she dropped on the floor, for the dozenth time, and Cat absentmindedly picked it up.

‘But can she cook?’ asked Pippa.

‘Who knows?’ said Cat. ‘And who cares? The TV bods probably don’t, and neither do the public. Maybe I’ll take a leaf out of Delia’s book and start doing my own stuff online. And maybe I won’t.’

With a determined shake of her head, Cat pulled herself out of her gloom. She turned to her two friends. ‘It’s not all about me. How’s life treating you two?’

Marianne looked away when Cat asked, and she felt like she might have said the wrong thing, but if there was something awry, Marianne clearly didn’t want to talk about it. Cat suspected it might have something to do with Gabriel’s ex, Eve. Marianne had hinted there had been a few problems since Christmas, when Eve had been taken ill and eventually sectioned. There was a pause, then Pippa smiled a deliberately cheerful smile, ‘Fine,’ said Pippa, ‘everything’s just fine.’

‘That sounded convincing,’ said Cat, anything but convinced. ‘What’s up?’

‘Only this divorce business,’ sighed Pippa. She took a battered envelope out of her pocket. ‘I keep meaning to post this, but somehow, I can never bring myself to …’

‘Pippa!’ exclaimed Marianne, clearly shocked, ‘you said you’d done it last week.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Pippa, looking thoroughly miserable. ‘I just can’t seem to do it. I know I have to, eventually.’

‘But not today?’ said Cat with sympathy. Pippa had had a rotten time of it over the last year, sorting out her divorce was probably the last thing she wanted to do.

Pippa looked embarrassed. ‘It’s really stupid, I know,’ she said. ‘I know I’m not facing up to things. But once I post this, it’s so – final. That’ll be me and Dan done and dusted. And nothing will ever be the same again.’

‘Oh Pippa,’ said Cat and squeezed her hand, and Marianne gave her a hug. ‘And here’s me harping on about a stupid TV programme.’

Cat looked down at Lou Lou who was still playing happily with her rabbit, kicking her toes in the air without a care in the world. Cat might have lost a job, but she still had her family and her husband. And that was worth all the lost jobs in the world.

Marianne walked back home, feeling bereft. She’d enjoyed the break with Cat and Pippa, enjoyed sitting in the warmth, sipping hot chocolate and chewing the fat. It was one of the best things about coming to live in Hope Christmas. Here she had solid, reliable, decent friends, so unlike flaky Carly and Anna her so called mates in London. She knew she could trust Cat and Pippa to help her whenever she needed. It was a very comforting feeling.

But much as she’d love to, she couldn’t stay in the café all day; the twins had a long day at nursery today and there was plenty to do at home, she should make the most of their absence to give the house a good spring clean for starters. It was just that … She didn’t particularly feel like doing any of it. Perhaps she should go and help Gabriel in the fields. At least it would get her outside, and on a fresh clear day like this, it was much better than being indoors doing housework.

She felt cheered by the thought – before the twins were born, when she wasn’t working, she’d often helped Gabriel out, but since their arrival, there was simply never enough time. Marianne didn’t have much time today either, but she could do something. Anything was better than tidying the lounge, cleaning the kitchen, and sorting out the toy room for no particular purpose as it would be trashed again once the kids got back.

But when she got home, Gabriel was already indoors, sitting by the fire feeding a new born lamb.

‘The mum died,’ he explained. ‘I found this one in the back of the barn, baaing beside the body.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Marianne. Gabriel always took the deaths of his ewes personally. Sometimes she thought he was far too sentimental for a farmer.

‘Can I help?’ One job she never tired of was feeding new born lambs. Something about their lovely wriggliness made her feel cosy and warm.

‘The twins will be thrilled to pieces,’ she said.

‘Won’t they just?’ Gabriel smiled the smile which always made Marianne go tingly all over, even now, when they’d been married all this time. With his shock of dark hair, soulful brown eyes, and lovely wide open grin, it always made Marianne feel blessed that he was hers. It felt like ages since she’d seen him smile like that. Maybe that’s what happened when you’d been married a few years, and had an awkward ex hovering in the background. You forgot to smile at each other.

They shared a cosy half hour till the lamb was settled, and then, finishing off his tea, Gabriel got up to go out again.

‘I’d love to stay all day,’ he said, ‘but needs must …’

‘Can I help?’ asked Marianne. ‘It’s either that or slit my wrists over the state of the playroom.’

‘Sure,’ said Gabriel, his face lighting up. ‘It’s been ages since you’ve come out on the fields with me. It would be great to have some company. I was just going back out to check on the pregnant ewes, and make sure they’ve got enough feed.’

‘It will do me good to get some fresh air,’ said Marianne. ‘I mustn’t forget to pick the twins up, though.’ She grabbed a coat, hat and scarf, and went to the boot room to pick up her wellies. Just as well she’d never been one for glamour – being a farmer’s wife gave you precious few opportunities to spruce yourself up. You chose this, remember, she said to herself, as she followed Gabriel down the lane, to the gate at the end which led to their fields. The pregnant ewes were in a barn at the end of it, Gabriel always liking to keep them in till they’d had their babies, although it made for a lot of hard work keeping it clean, but the alternative was scouring the hills looking for lost ewes, which still also happened occasionally.

As they climbed over the foot stile towards their lower fields, where the pregnant ewes were wintering, Marianne noticed some activity in the field next to them, which belonged to Blackstock Farm, on the other side of the lane. It was the same field where she’d seen an estate agent showing someone round just before Christmas.

‘I see there are people back in Blackstock Farm again,’ said Gabriel.

Blackstock Farm had lain empty for some months, since Old Joe (the farmer who’d owned it) had died at the grand old age of ninety. Rumours abounded in the village about what would happen to the land; Old Joe having no family that anyone could remember.

‘What do you think they’re doing?’ said Marianne.

‘No idea,’ said Gabriel. ‘With any luck it’s going to go for auction and we’ll find ourselves a new neighbour.’

‘With any luck,’ said Marianne. But as she looked back down the field, she saw several men, unsuitably dressed in office garb and smart shoes, and wondered. They were taking photographs, and making notes, and seemed very animated. She remembered her feeling of foreboding from a few months earlier. She had a nasty feeling they hadn’t heard the last of Old Joe’s farm.

How’s your day been? :-)

Pippa looked at Richard’s text and sighed. How to explain her day so far? After coffee with the girls (the highlight), she’d got home to discover another letter from Dan’s solicitor, gently reminding her she hadn’t responded to the first. She decided Richard didn’t need to know about that.

Fine. Yours? she responded, and instantly a text pinged back.

Boring. Missing you xxx

Oh. Richard often added little comments like that to his texts. She wished he wouldn’t. It made her feel panicky, as if he were forcing an intimacy she wasn’t quite ready for.

Me too x Pippa texted, feeling it was required. The truth was she still didn’t know how she felt where Richard was concerned, and felt guilty about leading him on. But it was nice to have someone kind and gentle who seemed to care for her. Perhaps she should just accept that for now. She felt she was going round in circles, and could never get her head straight about what was the best thing to do.

Pippa sighed. She really ought to deal with this letter; every time she didn’t, it cost Dan (and them) money. She should get on with it. And she would. Later. For now she needed to look through the accounts. The tax year was nearly up and she’d been neglecting them, much to the irritation of their accountant, John, who was practically having a nervous breakdown. The trouble was, everything was in such a mess.

Since Dan’s accident they’d had to scale back the workload, he simply couldn’t do as much as he had done, and even with help from both their dads and the boys at the weekend, it wasn’t enough. In order to manage they’d cut back on the amount of cattle they were rearing, which of course ate into profits. At one stage they’d been able to afford extra help, but after the year they’d just had, coupled with the abysmally low price of milk and the high price of animal feed, hiring any help this year was out of the question. It was an ever increasing downward spiral of financial misery, and she wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do about it. The trouble was, that for both her and Dan, the farm was a way of life, and not something either of them could give up easily. Hence Dan’s still hanging around to help run it with her, even though he’d moved out.

Pippa felt a familiar feeling of sickness in the pit of her stomach as she looked through the figures again, willing them to be better. She had started having sleepless nights about money, and for the first time since she and Dan had taken over the farm from her parents fifteen years earlier, she was really worried that they might not make a go of things. They’d weathered storms before, but this, this felt different. And she was more and more overwhelmed by the bills which kept coming. She knew she needed to face up to it, but at the moment it all felt too much.

And of course, now that Dan wanted a divorce, they’d have to look at what to do about the farm properly. Which was complicated, as in order to make improvements over the years, they’d borrowed from Pippa’s parents who were silent partners in the business. The way it was going there’d be precious little of the business left, and their investment would be up the swannee. It wouldn’t matter at all if she and Dan were still together, but now they were apart and going to be apart permanently, Pippa just couldn’t see how she was going to be able to buy Dan out, which was her preferred option, and what to do about the farm was hanging over her like a dark black cloud.