We are driving through a perfect village. I mean it: if you were to imagine the prettiest of English villages, this is how it would look. Thatched pub, hanging baskets filled with winter pansies, a boutique window hand-painted with the white silhouettes of Christmas trees.

      ‘It’s so … perfect,’ I marvel, realising I sound like someone who’s never been let out of the city before.

      Ben chuckles. ‘It is, I guess. It’s all very tidy and well-behaved.’

      ‘There’s no litter,’ I add. ‘Not one bit of it.’

      ‘No, well, there are committees that patrol that kind of thing. A dropped fag end and you’re looking at two years. A take-away carton and you’ll be shot …’

      I smile, wondering how it was to grow up around here. The only teenagers I’ve spotted were hanging out in a good-natured group. There were hugs and laughter and girls tossing their hair about, photogenically, as if in a film. I haven’t noticed any aimless loitering. It’s the kind of village where you might expect to see a young, attractive couple laughingly carrying a real Christmas tree through the streets.

      We drive past an old-fashioned butcher’s, a cheese shop and a shop selling ‘curios and collectables’. The shops are subtly decorated for Christmas with artful arrangements of natural foliage. No fake snow or tinsel. There’s nothing as brash as the six-foot flashing plastic Santa – I mean flashing in both senses of the word, i.e. he opens his red coat to expose a furry reindeer G-String – which currently fills the window of the 99p shop round the corner from my house. There’s been a little snow this morning. When we left my South London street where I live it had already turned to grey mush; here it has speckled the slate-tiled rooftops and pavements in icing-sugar white.

      ‘Are you sure your parents are okay about me coming?’ I ask, with a twinge of anxiety.

      Ben glances at me from the driver’s seat. ‘’Course they are. You keep asking me that. There’s plenty of room, there’ll be tons to eat …’

      He’s just not getting it. It’s not space I’m worried about, or going hungry; Ben’s parents have a vast country home with turrets and topiary and sweeping grounds tended by a gaggle of staff. I can’t imagine we’ll be left to forage for a packet of crisps. In fact, Ben has already filled me in on his mother’s dedication to creating the perfect Christmas, kicking off sometime around March: the turkey personally selected from some rare-breed farm – when it’s still in the egg, probably – and the cake made and laid down (or whatever you do with fruit cake) many months before Christmas. I am intimidated by Clara’s Christmas cake and I haven’t even met her yet.

      ‘I just wish I knew them a little bit,’ I explain. ‘Christmas feels like a big deal, you know? It’s pretty intimate. They might prefer it just to be family—’

      ‘They love having people to stay,’ Ben says firmly. ‘They’re very sociable.’

      ‘Yes, but I’m not just people, Ben …’ We have left the village now. I gaze out at undulating snow-dusted fields.

      ‘Look,’ he cuts in, a trace of exasperation in his voice, ‘they’re a bit batty – I’ve already told you that – but they’re generous people and they’re going to love you. I mean, how could they not?’ He reaches out to squeeze my hand.

      I mull this over. Maybe he’s right, and my edginess is more to do with my own, rather pathetic hang-ups – specifically, never having spent any significant amount of time with properly posh types before. The past three years, I’ve spent Christmas with my housemates, Kate, Jamie and Tom; we’ve cobbled together a ramshackle lunch involving much shrieking and sloshing of wine. We’ve spent the day dancing and drinking and playing pop quizzes with the aid of Jamie-compiled playlists. I’ve loved them. They’ve reminded me of my own family Christmases when my own parents were alive: cheap and cheerful affairs, all Buck’s Fizz, Woolworth’s tinsel and a supermarket bird. One year we didn’t have a bird at all. Dad bought a gammon joint from Iceland.

      But perhaps it’s time to grow up – to discover what a lavish country Christmas is all about. I am 34 years old, and have been seeing Ben since the scorching hot August bank holiday when we fell into conversation outside a Soho pub. And I have to admit, I was flattered when he asked me to his parents’ for Christmas. ‘I think it’s time,’ he said, as if preparing to present me to royalty. And do I still want burnt roast potatoes and rowdy celebrations with housemates when I’m 40?

      ‘Daisy’s pleased you’re coming,’ Ben adds.

      ‘I’m glad she’s going to be there,’ I say truthfully, my spirits rising at the thought of spending time with his little girl.

      ‘Me too. You know she’s spent the last two Christmases with her mum. I really missed her. It was pretty