Snowflakes at the Little Christmas Tree Farm

She sighs like I’m a lost cause. ‘Just find me a sexy Scottish bloke who rolls his Rs and doesn’t mind saying “murder” a lot.’ She drags the R out like a cat’s purr.

‘If I find anyone who actually speaks like that, I’m going to call the local zoo to check for missing animals in heat. And you seem to have forgotten that you’re married.’

‘I only want him to speak! I don’t want to sleep with the man or anything. Although I wouldn’t mind if you found one with good thighs and a penchant for wearing kilts in the traditional way … you know, sans underwear. Purely for educational purposes, obviously. To learn about Scottish culture.’

‘You can find him yourself when you come up to stay with me.’

‘Hah!’ She bursts into laughter, causing the customers who looked at us earlier to turn around and peer at us again. ‘It’s October. It’s freezing and we’re in London which has already got a good ten degrees on the rest of the UK. If you think I’m going to the back end of beyond in the middle of winter, you can guess again. Invite me next summer if the stars align and there’s a heatwave, the rain stops, and all the Scottish midges go away. Does Scotland even get a summer? And you’d better check out this “dwelling” before you start inviting visitors, you might only have room for guests of the equine variety.’

‘You’re my best friend. You’re meant to be supportive.’

‘I am supportive. I’d just be a lot more supportive if you’d bought a vineyard on the French Riviera. Then I’d help you move and probably stay on as your employee to help you out. You could pay me in wine and French pastries. Do you think it’s too late to exchange it for a French vineyard?’

‘You should’ve bought a vineyard and I should’ve bought a chocolate factory and then we’d have been set for life. Wine and chocolate, who needs anything else?’ I grin. ‘Don’t you think a Christmas tree farm sounds magical though? Even the name gives me little tingles of joy. It sounds so delightfully festive, and those photos make it look so pretty. All those trees blowing in the breeze … You can imagine it in the snow, reindeer grazing all around, Santa’s elves dancing around the tree trunks while jingle bells ring in the distance …’

I can tell she’s questioning my sanity. Maybe elves aren’t quite the best thing to base your property-buying decisions on.

‘Your mum and dad would be so proud,’ she says eventually. ‘Your dad used to love getting his Christmas tree every year, didn’t he?’

‘Yeah, and Mum always used to spend the whole of Christmas moaning about pine needles on the carpet, even though she loved Christmas more than any other time of year and always said it wouldn’t be the same without Dad’s tree making a mess in the middle of the room.’ I tear up at the memory and Chelsea reaches over and squeezes my hand.

‘They’d love this.’

I nod and try to will the tears away. They really, really would. Is that subconsciously what drew me to the listing? After they died, I was left their house, but apart from my job and flat being in London, I could never face moving back there with them gone. The best thing to do was to let it be a happy family home for another family, like it was for us when I was growing up. I wasn’t sure what to do when the money from the sale came through. Chelsea’s advice was to get on the property ladder because I’ve moved from rented flat with crappy landlord to rented flat with even crappier landlord for the past few years, but I’ve never found anywhere that felt like home.

‘I can’t believe you’re leaving to become a Christmas tree farmer. Talk about random.’ Chelsea sips her latte again. ‘You hadn’t even considered it twenty-four hours ago.’

I had. I just didn’t realise that my hours of daydreaming about Peppermint Branches were considering it. ‘That’s the thing about fate. Sometimes things happen that you’re not really in control of.’

‘Also known as Prosecco? And the things that usually happen are drunken texts to exes and shoes you can’t walk in, not Christmas tree farms.’

‘You know what I mean,’ I say, even though there are hazy memories of us having girls’ nights out which ended in both messy texts and inadvisable shoes. ‘I don’t have any doubt about this. For the first time in years, I feel like I’m doing the right thing.’

‘Do you have any idea how much I’m going to miss you?’ She bangs her head down on her folded arms on the table and short blonde hair flops over her forehead. ‘I don’t even know what to say, other than good luck. I think you’re going to need it.’

I grin at her. ‘No, I’m not. It’s going to be perfect, you’ll see. Nothing could possibly go wrong.’

Chapter 2

Two weeks later, after handing in notice to my landlord, squeezing all my important belongings into every spare centimetre of my car, and leaving the rest in Chelsea’s garden shed, I’m off up the M40 in my tiny blue Peugeot. Only six hundred miles to go. But the distance doesn’t matter. Nothing has ever felt as right as this. I’m not someone who takes risks or does things without thinking them through, and in the fortnight it’s taken me to pack up my tiny flat and give my keys back to the landlord, no modicum of doubt has crept in yet.

Even though Chelsea was very keen to let me know there’d always be a place for me on her sofa if it all goes horribly wrong.

It’s the middle of October, but I’m moving to a Christmas tree farm, so it’s only right to put on my Christmas playlist. The autumn weather is gorgeous as I drive north on a sunny Tuesday morning, listening to a carefully curated selection of Christmas classics. By the time I’ve detoured around Manchester, I’ve been on the road for six hours, and the afternoon light is fading fast. I stop for the night at a B&B before facing another five-ish hours on the motorway the next morning, singing along to Mariah Carey, Michael Bublé, and Cliff Richard, and everything feels different as I cross the border. I grin at the blue and white Scottish flag road sign declaring ‘Welcome to Scotland’ as I pass it.

Even the endless motorways seem prettier. There are green fields all around and wind turbines spinning in the distance, and the scenery gets even better as I join the traffic towards Aberdeenshire. The sea is far off to my right and the mid-afternoon sun reflects off the water, creating an almost blinding sunburst. As the motorways change into narrow roads, there are fields of lush green trees everywhere I look. The grassy verges at the roadside are a healthy shade of green even though it’s nearly winter, and the farmland around me is all recently harvested fields full of bales of hay, interspersed with patches of uniform dark green fir trees. It gives me a little thrill every time I see them. The roads are lined with a fence of trees towering above the car, a perfect screen separating road and farmland, the remnants of yellow hay peeking through from the other side. I feel a flutter in my belly as I get nearer and nearer to the village of Elffield.

There are neat patches of evergreen trees in the distance and I keep glancing towards them and wondering if they’re mine. Is Peppermint Branches that close? I have no idea how big the land is in reality. Twenty-five acres sounds like a lot, but how far does that actually stretch? How many trees will be growing in that kind of space? The satnav is beeping and telling me that I’m nearing my destination, but it’s a bit weird because the nearer I get, the more the trees surrounding the road start to thin out. Instead of pretty patches of lush green, the car crawls up a narrow road surrounded by a forest of the skeleton branches of dead trees, fenced in by what looks like shredded chicken wire. Surely I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere? I glance at the satnav but it still shows that Peppermint Branches should be straight ahead.

This must all be my neighbour’s land. Whoever he is, he doesn’t maintain his trees very well. Any minute now, I’m going to come out the other side and see rows of beautiful emerald Christmas trees.

But my satnav is repeatedly telling me that I’ve reached my destination, and in a big driveway set back from the road, there’s a man in a smart suit leaning against the door of the shiniest black car I’ve ever seen. He pushes himself upright and steps forward as I approach, like he’s waiting for someone. But it must be a mistake. He couldn’t possibly be the estate agent I was supposed to meet here and there’s no way he’s waiting for me, because this is not Peppermint Branches.

Peppermint Branches was all green trees and Christmassy goodness. It looked like somewhere you’d sing Christmas carols and hear the jingling of Santa’s elves. If you heard any jingling around this place, it would be because the elves were running away as fast as their jingling little feet could carry them.

And that … dwelling … behind him. It couldn’t be the dwelling, could it? It’s only got half a roof and its windows are a thing of history. There’s green ivy scrambling up one side that looks like it’s doing a better job of holding the building together than the crumbling bricks themselves.

I’m so distracted that I nearly mow the man down as he starts walking towards my car. He’s definitely coming over with intent. Surely this is all some terrible mistake and whoever he’s really waiting for will be along any second. My satnav must’ve made a mistake bringing me here. I can ask him for directions and be on my way.

I stop the car and don’t bother to turn the engine off, I’m not staying. I roll my window down as he approaches.

‘Miss Griffiths?’

I freeze. He knows my name. That’s not a good sign. This can’t actually be Peppermint Branches … can it?

The building was a cute farmhouse once, but not for many years. No wonder they described it as a dwelling, and that’s pushing it a bit. I don’t think even bats would fancy dwelling in it. And the trees. Where are the trees? There are fields of trees on both sides of the road, but not one of them looks like it’s still living.

‘Miss Griffiths?’ The man in the smart suit leans down so his head appears in the car window, not looking too happy about having to repeat himself. ‘Welcome to Peppermint Branches. Congratulations on your purchase.’

‘Are you joking?’ I turn the engine off and swing my legs out of the car door. One foot sinks immediately into a muddy puddle. Congratulations, indeed.

I squelch as I try to heave myself out of the mud and onto the weed-covered gravel driveway. God, it’s grim. The sunlight from earlier has faded to a dull grey sky that looks like it’s considering getting dark even though it’s only half past three. The endless skeletons of dead trees rise up against the horizon. I glance behind me at the ‘dwelling’ and look away quickly in case I burst into tears, because tears seem like a distinct possibility. It was supposed to be a flourishing little Christmas tree farm. This looks more like someone’s done the place up early for Halloween. ‘Are you sure this is the right place?’

‘Yes, of course.’ He sounds like he doesn’t understand why I’m questioning it. ‘I’m from Scottish Pine Properties. We spoke on the phone.’

‘This is nothing like it looked on the website.’ I struggle to find words for how shocked I am.

‘Well, it does say that we encourage viewings. We recommend all potential buyers pop by for a look around before making a decision.’

‘Pop by? I live six hundred miles away!’ I snap, feeling a bit guilty because he’s not exactly wrong, is he? It’s what Chelsea tried to say before I stopped her. Who would be stupid enough to spend their entire life’s savings on a property that they’d never even seen?

‘Yes, I’m glad you’ve arrived, I’ve been waiting for ages. Here’s the paperwork.’ He pushes a clipboard towards me with blue page markers at the places I need to sign.

‘The photos made it look different.’ I ignore the clipboard in his hand. ‘What happened to the trees? They’re all dead.’

He glances behind him like this is surprise news. ‘Well, it’s winter, isn’t it? Trees drop their leaves at this time of year.’

‘They’re meant to be Christmas trees. They’re evergreen by definition.’

‘Not these ones.’ He gives me a cheerful shrug and looks at the field of bare branches to our left again. ‘I suppose the photos may have been a little outdated …’

‘A little outdated?’ I repeat. ‘Judging by the state of the trees, it looks like they were taken centuries ago!’

‘They were taken when the property went on the market, and it’s been on the market for a very long time. No misrepresentation here.’

‘How long?’

‘I say, is that the time? It really is late, isn’t it?’ He feigns a look at his watch, completely ignoring my question.

Why has it been on the market for so long? It didn’t say anything about that on the auction listing. I thought it would be in high demand. I thought there would be loads of bidders and that I was the luckiest person in the world when I won that auction. Who wouldn’t want a Christmas tree farm, after all?

The estate agent taps the clipboard when I make no move to sign anything. ‘You got an absolute bargain here, Miss Griffiths. Twenty-five acres of land, a viable business, an … er … residential property.’ He glances at the building behind me and quickly looks away.

I’ve only been here for three minutes and I can already tell that it has that effect on people. It’s not the kind of building you want to look at for too long.

‘A viable business?’ I say. ‘It’s a Christmas tree farm and there isn’t one living Christmas tree on it.’

‘Yes, but so much land.’ He rubs his hands like he’s trying to show me just how cold he is from waiting and his eyes flick to the clipboard again. ‘And your main area of Christmas trees is down there.’ He points down the lane between the house and the dead trees. ‘Look, I can see some green bits in the distance. I’m sure plenty of them are still living that you can cut and sell.’

Cut them? I glance at the dead trees with peeling bark and broken branches. Most of them look like they’re going to fall over at any moment and save me the trouble. ‘This is a matter for trading standards. You’re selling something that’s nothing like it was advertised.’

‘Everything’s mentioned in the brochure.’ He flicks up a page on the clipboard and taps it with his pen. ‘PDFs were available on our website for all potential buyers to download, and if you’d checked the terms and conditions, you would’ve seen the disclaimer that all photographs are for guidance only.’

Another page full of tiny print held out to show me and I sigh. He’s right again, isn’t he? I got so caught up in a daydream and a bidding war that it didn’t even cross my mind to check things like terms and conditions. Magical images of a Christmas tree farm and the possibility of owning one overruled the more menial things like common sense.

‘It’s all yours now, Miss Griffiths. To be honest, I’m glad to see the back of the place. I’ve been out here hundreds of times to do viewings, but no one’s ever decided to make an offer for it. I’ve never understood why.’

I risk a glance at the house again. Even calling it a house is an insult to houses. To be honest, it’s an insult to a garden shed. This guy must be over the moon that an idiot like me came along.

‘The auction was the last shot before we gave up on it completely. Some properties aren’t financially worth the trouble,’ he continues. ‘It’s an unconventional property and we decided to try an unconventional way of selling it, and it certainly paid off in the end.’

‘Right, and do you think the cashier at the supermarket is going to accept my unconventional way of paying for my next shop via IOU note?’

He laughs, even though I wasn’t joking. What little is left in my savings has to be spent on the farm, and after looking at the place, it’s clearly not enough. And I’ve emptied my current account to get up here. I doubt I could even afford the petrol to go back to London and sleep on Chelsea’s sofa.

He flattens the papers on his clipboard again and pushes it towards me, back on the page with the markers showing where I have to sign.

I hesitate. Could I still get out of this? The agreement is made and the money exchanged. I signed something electronically, but this is the first time putting actual pen to actual paper.

He nods pointedly towards the pen that has somehow ended up in my hand and gives me what is probably supposed to be an encouraging smile. He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet in his haste to get out of here with a signature.

I take a deep breath of fresh, fresh air, and already I can tell that it’s so different from London. Even the air feels different as I look around again. We’re on a big gravel driveway outside the house, and in front of us is a farm gate that leads down a wide lane, past fields of weeds which seem to be the only thing flourishing on this land. Beyond that, I can see the tops of some dark green trees. That’s got to be a promising sign.

I take a few steps towards the wide wooden farm gate, peer at the trees in the distance and feel that little flutter in my stomach again. I thought the butterflies that I’ve been feeling since the auction had all dropped down dead the moment I pulled in, and if not, then one look at the house had certainly finished them off. But as I look out from the gate and survey the chaotic mess that is somehow my land, a little flutter comes again. It might not look like the pictures, but it did once. I could make it like that again, couldn’t I?

‘I don’t mean to rush you but I really do have to get back. I’ve got a lot of work to do before we close tonight, and I’ve been waiting a while for you to arrive …’

He does mean to rush me, that’s exactly what he’s trying to do. He’s probably terrified that I’m going to try to pull out of the contract and he’s going to be lumbered with trying to find another idiot who doesn’t read terms and conditions to offload this place onto. He’ll likely get a handsome bonus for finally getting shot of such a problematic property.

This isn’t what I expected, but I still don’t want to pull out. A branch in one of the fields creaks ominously. I reconsider for a moment, and then I press the pen against the paper and sign my name on his dotted lines.

All right, it’ll be more of a challenge than I thought it would, but I wanted a challenge. I wanted something completely different from what my life has been until now. It’ll be fine. As long as I don’t look at the house. If I look at it, I’ll start crying.

‘Phew.’ The estate agent can’t contain his relief as he skips across to whisk the clipboard out of my hands before I’ve even finished the s at the end of my surname. He unclips the papers and shuffles them, pulling some sheets out with a flourish and slipping them into his shiny briefcase. He taps the rest into a neat pile and hands them to me, then he removes a jangle of keys from his pocket and waves them in front of my face.

‘Congratulations, Miss Griffiths. If you have any queries, feel free to get in touch with the office at any time.’

I can almost hear the unspoken ‘but don’t expect an answer, I never want to hear the words “Peppermint Branches” again’ that he desperately wants to tack onto the end of that sentence.

‘It’s all yours now. Good luck.’

He rushes back to his shiny car and speeds out of the driveway faster than a rocket full of monkeys with extra jet fuel.

Surely it’s not normal for estate agents to wish you luck?

Chapter 3

As the engine of his car echoes down the empty road, I stand in the driveway and look around, feeling a bit lost. I expected a friendly estate agent to show me around fields full of neat rows of trees like the ones I’ve passed on the way up here. I expected him to point out exactly what’s mine and tell me something about Christmas tree farming, maybe stop for a cup of tea while we signed paperwork in my quaint farmhouse.

But that would be a Hallmark movie, not real life.

In reality, the ‘quaint farmhouse’ looks like it could be part of the set for a zombie apocalypse movie, and the neat rows of Christmas trees look like indistinct greenery in the distance, and the map that the estate agent has left me with may as well be written in ancient Greek because I can’t work out how it translates into actual, real-life land.

I text Chelsea to tell her I’ve arrived safely and avoid mentioning the state of things. It seems a bit scary to venture down the lane towards the tall trees, and even scarier to face the farmhouse, so I lean into the car and grab a black bobble hat from the passenger seat and pull it down over my long hair. It’s cold today, the kind of cold that creeps in and numbs your fingers before you even realise it, and I shove my hands into my pockets as I wander up towards the road.

I cross the tarmac and peer over the broken wire fence. There are loads of different trees in there. The bare branches of something that’s already dropped its leaves for winter, the blaze of red, orange, and yellow of a few oak trees in their full autumn glory, and the first sign of a few Christmas trees. Unfortunately, they’re all in shades of yellow to brown. The healthiest looking ones have a few sprigs of green in amongst the brown dead needles. I don’t know much about trees, but I’m fairly positive that that is not what an ideal Christmas tree looks like.

I turn around and look back across the road towards the battered old farmhouse and the land stretching out behind it. It can’t be that bad. All right, it’s a bit neglected, but the map shows loads of land behind the house, the Christmas trees must be there, and they can’t all be in this state … can they?

To my right is farmland that looks neatly maintained so obviously belongs to someone else, and adjacent to my house are fields and fields of pumpkins growing. I can see a farmer in one of them, crouching down by the large orange vegetables on the ground. In the distance is a picturesque farmhouse with smoke pouring from its chimney into the dull afternoon sky, looking cosy and perfect.

I go back across the road to my crumbling old house and have a look around outside. At the back is a little garden enclosed by what’s left of a rotting fence. There’s an abandoned caravan run aground in the overgrown grass, surrounded by the broken glass from its smashed windows. There are piles of roof tiles in such a state that I can’t work out if they’re to repair the broken roof or if they’re the ones that have fallen off it. There are tools and cracked buckets and shards of wood, the bones of what was once a washing line, and unknown parts of unidentifiable machinery.

There’s a noise inside the caravan and I edge a bit closer. You can guarantee there are rats or something living inside it, although given the state of it, I’m not sure even rats would deign to inhabit it – and maybe it says something about my day so far that rats are the least of my problems. Maybe it’s not rats. Who knows what could be living up here outside of civilisation? Apart from the other farmhouse in the distance, there’s nothing else around. It’s been hours since I passed a garage or a shop. Species that don’t exist further south could be thriving here. It’s a different world to the city I’m used to.

Glass crunches under my boots as my weight presses it into the ground and I take a tentative step towards the caravan and look in through the jagged window frame. Inside, the caravan has been ransacked, everything is torn out of its fittings and upside down on the floor, and it’s full of grime, mud, and god knows what else.

‘Oi,’ I say to the unseen occupant. ‘When I find the nearest shop, I’m going to buy a nice big box of rat poison. I’m giving you a choice, mate, all right? If you pack up now and move out, we’ll say no more about it. If you stay, I promise an untimely and probably painful death. You might have been living in comfort here, but I’ve bought the place now, and I don’t know what you are, but I suspect you’re the unwelcome kind of lodger.’ I take another step and tap the side of the battered old caravan. ‘And if buying a Christmas tree farm without thought was insane, god knows what a one-sided conversation with an unseen rodent about the ins and outs of squatters laws would be considered. So go on, matey, off you go.’