heart even without his father’s understanding, but I knew the man’s approval still meant the world to him.
‘Freya!’ Finn called, when he spotted me loitering. ‘Come and join us.’
With all eyes on me, I walked to where they were standing. Finn reached for my hand and in a rush told them that I was his girlfriend.
‘Bugger,’ Zak grinned and I knew he was only acting up for the sake of it. ‘What, like officially and everything?’
‘Officially and everything,’ Finn said firmly, kissing the back of my hand before properly introducing me to everyone.
The day absolutely flew by and it took a while for me to catch up with Mum and Dad. I worked my way around the garden in my capacity as head gardener, stopping to talk to the visitors and offering advice when asked, and I was keen to find out what my parents thought of the place.
‘Isn’t that them?’ said Finn, pointing when we gave up in the garden and walked round to the Grow-Well.
‘It is,’ I nodded, easily picking the pair out. ‘What’s Mum eating?’
She was tucking into a slice of the pizza John had made in the garden oven and deep in conversation with Graham about the joys of pea sticks versus metal stakes. Dad was looking a little unfocused and I guessed he had been sampling the mulled wine Carole had been warming in the bothy. They still looked like my parents, but they didn’t sound much like them. I was rather pleased about that.
‘And here she is,’ Dad beamed, ‘our clever girl.’
Finn and I stepped forward before Dad stood up. He was definitely a little tipsy, a state I had never seen him in. Mum, on the other hand, was high on life.
‘And this is Finn,’ I said, keeping introductions brief.
‘Well, Freya,’ Mum smiled, taking in Finn’s handsome face. ‘I can certainly see why you’re so smitten.’
‘The gardens are gorgeous, aren’t they?’ I swallowed.
‘The what?’ asked Mum. ‘Oh yes, the gardens. Yes, the gardens are glorious.’
I couldn’t swear to it, but I think she actually winked at Finn. The way he started to laugh told me that I was right, and I didn’t know what to feel more shocked about – her and Dad turning down Jackson’s project, the realisation that they had bought up half the plants and Mum was intending to get her hands (or at least her gardening gloves) dirty, or the fact that the pair of them had finally taken a long hard look at my life and applied the lessons that I had learned to their own!
* * *
There was a bit of a lull in the afternoon so Finn and I collected Nell and took her back to the house. I wanted to put some potatoes to slowly bake in the oven, so we would have something to eat after the illumination event, and while I did that Finn cleaned out and remade the fire.
‘Your mum’s a card, isn’t she?’ Finn laughed when he came back to the kitchen to wash his hands.
‘If you say so,’ I laughed back, thinking that he wouldn’t have said that had he met her the first time she had visited. ‘But she’s not usually like she was today.’
‘I could say the same for my father,’ he pointed out.
‘Parents are hard work, aren’t they?’ I sighed, thinking of the metamorphosis both sets had so very recently gone through.
‘Just a bit,’ he agreed. ‘Dad’s insisting that the two of us spend Christmas day with them.’
‘Oh no,’ I gasped. ‘My mum wants us to go there. What are we going to do?’
Finn glanced up at the kitchen clock.
‘We’re not going to worry about it now,’ he said stoically, ‘because we need to get back over the road.’
I knew I was biased, but the garden really was looking so much better and with the paths packed with friends who were already feeling more like family, a variety of visitors, a group of carol singers and Finn at my side, when the lights came on the whole place took on an even more magical appearance.
‘You were certainly right about washing those trees, weren’t you?’ smiled Chloe as she slipped her arm through mine and we stood admiring the bright bark and lengthy shadows as everyone ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ over the spectacle.
‘Yep,’ I smiled back, squeezing her into my side, ‘and I hope you know that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve anywhere near half of this if I hadn’t had your help to get it all