“Katie,” says Biddy suddenly, in a low voice, and I look up in surprise. “Please, love. You know what your dad’s like. He’ll buy these wretched tents and open up and it’ll be a disaster….” She puts her potato peeler down. “But I want this to work. I think it can work. We’ve got the money to invest; now’s the time….”

Her cheeks are faintly pink and she has a determined look about her that I don’t often see.

“I agree.” I put down my icing bag. “It’s an amazing site, and there’s definitely demand. But you need to do it right. And maybe I don’t have time to be a partner, but I still want to help….” I shake my head. “But I really don’t want to see you throw money away on cheap tents.”

“I know!” Biddy looks anguished. “I know! We don’t know what’s right, and your dad can be so obstinate….”

I meet eyes with her sympathetically. This is an understatement. My dad fixes onto a viewpoint—whether it’s the tube is full of terrorists or alpacas will make our fortune—and it’s practically impossible to budge him.

Then, to my surprise, I suddenly hear Demeter’s voice in my head: You need a bit of tenacity.

She’s right. What’s the point of being the only member of the family with experience in marketing and not speaking out? If I don’t at least try to talk Dad round, then I’m being feeble.

“OK,” I say. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Who are you going to talk to?” Dad comes in, holding the Radio Times, looking merry.

“You,” I say briskly. “Dad, you have to listen to me. If you’re going to open a glamping business, it has to be cool. It has to be…” I search for the right word. “Hip. Authentic. Not crappy tents from Dave Yarnett.”

“I’ve told Dave I’m buying them now.” Dad looks sulky.

“Well, un-tell him! Dad, if you buy those tents, you’re just throwing away money. You need to have the right image, or no one will come. I work with successful businesses, OK? I know how they operate.”

“You need to listen to Katie!” Biddy cries. “I knew we were getting it wrong! We’re buying yurts, Mick, and that’s the end of it. Tell us what else we need, Katie.”

She pulls out a notebook from the kitchen table drawer, and I see Glamping written on it in Biro.

“OK. I think if you’re going to do this, you should do it high-end. Really high-end. Do food…put on activities…make this a luxury glamping resort for families.”

“A resort?” Dad looks taken aback.

“Why not? You’ve got the space, you’ve got the resources, Biddy’s had experience in catering….”

“But not in the rest of it, love.” Biddy looks worried.

“I’ll give you pointers. The more luxury you go, the higher prices you can charge, the more profit you’ll make.”

“High prices?” Biddy looks even more anxious.

“People love high prices,” I say confidently.

“What?” Dad looks skeptical. “I think you’re wrong there, love.”

“I’m not! It’s prestige pricing. They see the prices and they think it must be good. If you’ve got some money to invest, high-end is the way to go. You’ll need luxury tents, for a start.” I count off on my fingers. “Yurts or tepees or whatever. And proper beds. And…” I search around in my mind for things I’ve seen on Instagram. “High thread count.”

My dad and Biddy exchange looks. “What count?”

“Thread count. Sheets.”

Biddy still looks baffled. She and my dad use the duvet sets that Biddy brought when she moved in. They’re cream and spriggy and date from the 1980s. I have no idea what thread count they are, probably zero.

“Biddy, we’ll go online and I’ll show you. Thread count is essential.” I try to impress this on her. “You need four hundred, at least. And nice soap.”

“I’ve got soap.” Dad looks proud of himself. “Job lot from the Factory Shop. Thirty bars.”

“No!” I shake my head. “It has to be some kind of local handmade organic soap. Something luxury. Your customers want to have London in the country. Like, rustic, but urban rustic.”

I can see Biddy writing down London in the country.

“You’ll need to put some showers in one of the barns,” I add.

Dad nods. “We’ve thought of that.”

One of his skills is plumbing, so I’m not too worried about that—as long as he doesn’t choose some terrible knock-off sanitary ware in bilious green.

Another idea hits me. “And maybe you should have an outside shower for summer. That would be amazing.”

“An outside shower?” My dad looks appalled. “Outside?”

Dad’s pride and joy is his Jacuzzi, which he bought secondhand and installed himself when we had some government-rebate windfall. His idea of a top relaxing evening is to sit in his Jacuzzi, drinking one of his homemade cocktails and reading the Daily Express. He’s not really an outside shower type of guy.

I nod. “Definitely. With wooden screens. Maybe with a wooden pail that drenches you, or something?”

“A wooden pail?” Dad looks even more horrified.

“It’s what they want.” I shrug.

“But you just said they want to be urban! Make up your mind, Katie!”

“They do and they don’t.” I’m struggling to explain. “They want nice soap, but they want to use it looking at the sky, listening to cows. They want to feel rural…but not actually be rural.”

“They sound like bloody lunatics.”

“Maybe.” I shrug again. “But they’re lunatics with money.”

The phone rings, and Dad answers. I can see Biddy diligently writing down thread count, handmade soap, cows.

“Hello? Oh yes. The scented logs? Of course. Let me just look in the order book….”

“Scented logs?” I say in an undertone to Biddy.

“It’s a new thing I’m doing,” she replies. “Pine-scented logs for Christmas. We’re selling them in bundles. You infuse them with pine oil. It’s very easy.”

“That’s clever!” I say admiringly.

“It’s gone quite well.” Biddy blushes. “Very popular.”

“Well, you can sell them to the glampers. And your jam. And your gingerbread biscuits. And give them your homemade granola for breakfast….”

The more I think about it, the more I think Biddy will be the perfect hostess for a bunch of glampers. She even has apple cheeks, like a proper farmer’s wife.

Then Dad’s voice impinges on my thoughts.

“No, we don’t have a sign. Where are you?” He takes a sip of his drink. “Oh, you can’t come that way.” He chuckles as if it’s perfectly obvious. “The satnav always gets it wrong….Oh, that gate? Yes, that gate will be shut….No, I don’t know the gate code….Well, you’ll have to come round the long way.” He listens again. “No, we don’t provide bags. Most of our customers bring their own. OK, we’ll see you shortly.” He puts down the phone and nods at Biddy.

“Customer for your logs.” He chuckles again. “She sounded a bit confused, poor love.”

“No wonder she was confused!” I erupt. “Dad, do you have any idea about customer service?” Dad looks blank, and I clutch my head. “You can’t behave like that if you open a glamping site! You need a map! Directions! Bags! You need to hold the client’s hand. Hold it throughout. Make them feel secure every minute of the process. Then you’ll have a happy customer.”

I suddenly realize I’m channeling Demeter again. In fact, I’m echoing her word for word.

Well, so what? Demeter may be the boss from hell and having torrid sex with the guy I thought I liked, but she’s still the most talented person in the office. If I don’t try to learn from her, I’m a fool.

I’ve been reading that book she lent me, Our Vision, and making notes on it. Not only that, I’ve been deciphering all Demeter’s scribbled comments in the margins and making notes on those too. And I’ve only written stupid cow once. Which I think is quite controlled of me.

“You see?” Biddy chimes in. “This is why we need Katie’s advice. She knows. Now, you listen to her, Mick.”

I’ve never heard Biddy so assertive, and I give an inward cheer.

“So, another question.” I look from Biddy to Dad. “Have you thought about marketing? You need a brand. An image.” My dad and Biddy look back at me helplessly and I feel a sudden tweak of love for them both. This is something I could do for them. I could create a glamping brand.

My mind is already at work. I’m seeing images. Taglines. Photos of fields, lambs, bunting, campfires…Oh God, it could look amazing.

“I’ll make you a leaflet,” I say. “And a website. I’ll create your brand. You just do the practical details. I’ll do the image.”

“Would you, love?” Biddy claps a hand over her mouth. “That would be wonderful!”

“I want to,” I say. “Really, I do.”

And it’s true. Not only do I want to—I can’t wait.

—

I work at it all Christmas. It consumes me. The sun is out again on Christmas Day, and instead of going to church with Dad and Biddy, I rush round the farm, taking endless pictures of fields, cows, random gateposts, whatever I can find. I download generic pictures of yurts, daffodils, fire pits, lambs, and a close-up of a child splashing in a lake which could easily be Fisher’s Lake. I get a shot of Dad’s tractor. I build a makeshift den with sticks, decorate it with the only string of bunting I possess, and get a picture of that. I take a close-up of Biddy’s jam, cunningly styled on an ancient linen tea towel, with some dried lavender sprigs in the foreground. (Biddy makes lavender bags every year too. And chamomile tea.)

Choosing the font takes a while, but in the end I find one which totally speaks to me. It’s cool, retro, a bit rustic but not twee. It’s perfect. I filter the pictures, play around with layout, and then start brainstorming copy.