Catherine knows that like her, her dad is an early riser, but when he calls her just after seven the morning after the wedding and before she gets her brain into gear, she hears herself saying, 'shouldn't you be making Ruth a cup of tea or something?'

Picking up on the or something which implies Catherine is inclined to put her foot in it which is a trait she has almost certainly inherited from him, Harry responds by saying, 'I do that every morning,' before inviting her to spend the day with them.

'Right then, we'll be down about nine then,' she tells him.

'I assume by the smile on your face that Catherine said yes,' says Ruth whose suggestion it had been that they start as they mean to go on for the next few days by inviting Catherine to spend as much time with them as she wants to. The idea that she brings Jacob with her is so that she can see at first hand the child who has enabled them over the time they have lived here to broaden their horizons mentally as well as physically and to give Graham and Sally a well-earned break before they go back to work.

That they are both in the kitchen loading the dishwasher with the last of the crockery from the previous evening, is because rather than have a honeymoon like normal people according to an article which Ruth had read somewhere and discarded, because it had implied that if they didn't spend thousands of pounds hiring a fancy venue for the reception that their marriage was doomed to fail, they had and still are thank you very much happy to be spending the time at home with the people they love.

That's not to say that sometime in the future they won't have a belated honeymoon, but at the moment with their one day at a time policy, today is the only day that counts and is why in the spirit of this is my party or in their case this is our party and we'll do as we want to, they have suggested that they all spend a second evening under the canopy, but this time without the pressure of them being the centre of attention.

.

'Graham and Sally said to thank you,' says Catherine,' who is torn between watching her father and Ruth who are making sandwiches and filling flasks with warm drinks before they head down to the beach and helping Jacob on with his boots. Because having only seen them during the wedding and afterwards at the reception the transformation in that they are now dressed casually which also applies to their body language, implies that this is the real them that she is looking at. In the same way that the hymn which she assumes had been their choice which spoke about the past the present and a future, the first of which Malcolm had implied had caused him to lose his hair, as opposed to the present which as anyone can see is as near perfect as it can be and with a future to look forward, is something that as a daughter who is very much not wearing her journalist's hat is sparking her curiosity.

Curiosity which takes an altogether different direction after they climb over the style, when not only does she get her first proper view of the beach but Jacob who she has been assured by Sally is superglued to Harry and Ruth, puts his small hand in hers.

Not used to children of any age it takes Harry's expression which suggests that not only Jacob doesn't bite but to have held her hand so early in their acquaintance is unusual, which she realises is his way of telling her that Jacob feels safe in her company to make her inwardly smile, until the grass is replaced by sand at which point her small charge abandons her in favour of heading for what she is about to find out is the stone on which they always sit.

Following in his wake, with no preconceived idea as to how the morning is going to pan out other than they are going to have their lunch on the beach, she is surprised for a second time in as many minutes when Ruth says to Jacob,' let's walk down to the water's edge and see what treasures the tide has brought in.'

The implication being that she knows that she wants to spend time with her dad on her own and even the day after the wedding when most couples would be glad to see the back of their guests, Ruth's not going to be one those clingy wives who wants him all to herself.

'Coffee,' suggests Harry who has his what he and Ruth have discussed needs to be a toned-down version of their relationship which has brought them to this moment to tell Catherine firmly fixed in his mind. With several omissions such as Ruth's two years in Cyprus and what had happened on her return, but with enough of their did we really say that moments to make her laugh.

Only for Catherine to say, 'I always thought that when the call came it would be to tell me you'd been shot or something so when the invitation came to say you were getting married again and before you say anything I think Ruth is lovely, my only question is why did it take you so long?'

'At a funeral!' Which is loud enough to have rattled the tiles on the roof of their house, is Ruth decides the time to leave the water's edge and as planned bypass the other losses and concentrate on what happened to Ros, which will also explain Caroline's presence. Their decision to buy somewhere with the idea of taking more time off until Lucas had threatened to blow their world apart which was when Harry had resigned and they had bought Dove Cottage, Graham being threatened and how it had been his decision to come here with them and where Sally and Jacob fit in, Catherine understands in as much as she nods. But as someone who has no interest in gardens whatsoever, the question remains and will do because her dad, not a gardener as far as she can remember seems keen to turn back the clock one hundred years and is why she makes a more than convincing attempt to disguise the fact that she has never assumed them to be anything other than sane.

All of which is being served up with sandwiches and drinks under a clear blue sky, with Jacob lining up the shells and stones which he and Ruth have collected.

Whilst back at Dove Cottage or more precisely in the garden, 'I think they would have called us if they'd seen it,' says Malcolm to Caroline who with Graham's help is positioning the stone statue which had been Ros's only concession to admiring her mother's garden near Ely which Caroline is giving to Harry and Ruth as a wedding present. Whilst in the background under the canopy Sally is sweeping the patio in readiness for the evening before they too sit down as a group and take a break, making the most of the last day before she and Graham go back to work. Whereas Malcolm who has for as long as remember and at the end of what has been a very long journey, is grateful there is a welcome sign outside the house of the two people he loves more than any other with his name on it.

.

The musical chairs as to who at any one time stays at Dove Cottage changes yet again, because well before the end of the evening Jacob falls asleep on Ruth's lap and why wake him, is the reason that Malcolm and Caroline who as far back as the day when Harry had proposed had been invited to stay with them for a week, insist they are more than happy to stay at the pub which opens the door for Catherine who for once in her life doesn't say anything just nods, when Ruth says, 'come on' when she is following Harry carrying Jacob upstairs.

The clue that this is a regular occurrence is when Ruth opens a draw and hands Harry a tiny pair of pyjamas at which point Catherine sees the dad of her childhood who on the nights that he had been there at bedtime, whatever else had been going on in the background had always read her and Graham a bedtime story. The nightlight, the curtains left slightly open because she had wanted to see the man in the moon all repeated here for a child who in the space of a day has won her heart.

And if that isn't enough to convince her that both her dad and Ruth want her feel part of this new family, it's early the next morning when Ruth having told her they need all the help they can get, hugs her and then points to a spare pair of boots and some work clothes, when they and Jacob are sitting at the breakfast table waiting for the breakfast which her dad has cooked and is plating up and Ruth slides her computer towards her and opens a file headed one man went to mow. Photos from day one with her dad and Malcolm up ladders on either side of a shed, a day out at what even with her lack of knowledge is of the plant nursery that Ruth's plants are coming from, Jacob unwrapping a wheelbarrow on Christmas Day and most uplifting, one of Graham and her dad with their arms around each other, leaning on spades with broad grins on their faces.

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Breakfast over, 'they'll be a list somewhere along with labels and the numbers of each plant,' Malcolm tells a relieved Catherine who has been looking at what Ruth had described as some plants and is wondering how to group them together like for like, when in her opinion not only are there hundreds but they all look the same. Before he adds, 'I'll give you a hand if you like,' which is music to her ears.

'I had a chat with Dad as you suggested,' she tells him handing him a heterophylla which means nothing to her but he with just a glance he adds to the group of climbers. Malcolm having told her that he himself at one time had had a large garden but not on this scale. How he had retired for a not dissimilar reason to her father and how Caroline had been persuaded in a way to buy a cottage near to where he lives.

'Gardening aside, is it wrong to say that I envy Graham?' Catherine finally asks him.

'It depends in what sense.'

'That I never know where I'm going to be from one day to the next and he's settled.'

'What you're really trying to say is that you want to see more of your dad isn't it.'

'And Ruth, yes.'

'But you wouldn't want to live here am I right?'

'No but I'm running out of time and I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back again.'

'Then make time Catherine, give Ruth another day in the garden and make sure that before you leave, you plan another visit even if it's only for a weekend.'

.

'Malcolm said if I wanted to know why you chose to buy this house, I should give you another day in the garden which isn't my idea of fun which I'm sure you've realised but am curious by nature and according to Malcolm a lot more like my dad than I thought I was.'

'We both love the sea and as your dad had been to Norfolk before, sounded better that telling Catherine that he had been shot by one of their colleagues, we signed up with an agency who had this on their books and better still we could move in straight away. The garden was in a dreadful state but the bones of what had been here all those years ago such as the walls and the paths, gave your dad as a present to me the idea to contact the land registry and ask if he could have a copy of the original plans and plants. We invited Malcolm and Caroline soon afterwards and the rest you know.'

'Talking about me?' Asks Harry, popping his head around the door as Ruth used to do all those years ago.

'Only in a good way,' is Ruth's response with a look that is so reminiscent of the way that they had looked at each other on their wedding day, that Catherine knows that when she does come back at a moment's notice and whenever that might be, it will be with the assurance that whatever else has changed in an ever evolving word that her dad and Ruth will be here to hold her hand if she needs it.