Emily is overcome with excitement when we tell her about the wedding and totally beside herself when I ask her to be a bridesmaid. She went over the top at Christmas with gaudy Santa jumpers and flashing reindeer antlers on her head. But this is on another level. There’s hyperventilating and screaming and a dash into Penzance to pick up a copy of Brides magazine. In contrast, Storm plays it cool and blanches with horror when the subject of being a bridesmaid is broached.

‘There’s no way I’m wearing some sad dress that looks like an explosion in a meringue factory,’ she informs me. But she does give me a quick hug and whispers in my ear: ‘He’s quite fit for a teacher’ which is high praise indeed.

When I text Barry with the news, he texts back from Hartlepool where his band’s playing a pub gig:

There’ll be no ‘giving away’ at my wedding seeing as I coped perfectly well without Barry for twenty-nine years until he turned up on my doorstep. But he can walk me up the aisle if he wants to. I’d like that.

Josh’s mum and his sisters are delighted with the news and Freya goes hyperactive at the prospect of being a flower girl. I’m happy too and can hardly wait to tie the knot but feelings of disloyalty niggle around the edges of my bright new life.

How can I be happy and looking forward to my wedding when I’ve just lost Alice? There seem to be two people in my head these days – sad Annie who aches inside at the sight of Alice’s empty chair by the fireplace and giddy Annie who’s dreaming of wedding dresses.

We manage to keep the news quiet over the weekend but it’s a good job the choir has an extra rehearsal on Monday night to practise for Perrigan Bay’s summer fete. There’s only so long anything stays quiet in a close-knit community and these days I’m fine with that.

Catching the eye of someone on the Tube marks you out as a weirdo in London so Salt Bay, where everyone knows your inside leg measurement within a week of arrival, was too much at first. But I’ve slowly learned to appreciate being surrounded by people who give a damn about me. And then there’s the choir.

Salt Bay Choral Society has and always will have a special place in my heart. The village was sad and subdued when I first got here and had never fully recovered from the Great Storm of 2002 which drowned seven singers in one night. That’s why the original choral society was disbanded. But I helped to resurrect it and am so glad I did because it brought me and Josh together and helped me feel at home. I saved the choir and in return the choir saved me. So it’s the perfect place to share our good news.

‘We’ve got something to tell you,’ announces Josh when all the choir have trooped into their seats and settled down.

‘Thank goodness because keeping it quiet is killing me,’ shouts Kayla. ‘It’s like knowing the Strictly result before everyone else and not being able to tweet it ’cos you’ll get hammered by trolls.’

‘Trolls? What on earth is the girl talking about and what exactly is going on?’ Jennifer is fanning herself with the sheet music for ‘Sunny Afternoon’ that Arthur reckons is far too modern for us. He gets in a right strop about singing anything composed after the Reformation.

‘Annie and I are taking the plunge and getting married,’ says Josh, giving me a sexy wink. I’m standing at the piano behind Michaela, who’s flexing her fingers and ready to go.

‘Woohoo, about time! I love a wedding,’ yells Maureen, jumping up and squashing the bag of leftover cupcakes from her tea shop that will feed us at breaktime.

The church is suddenly filled with sound and everyone rushes forward to shake Josh’s hand and give me a hug. Everyone except elderly Cyril, who hangs back but mouths ‘Congratulations’ at me. There are tiny scraps of bloodied tissue paper across his chin where his razor has nicked the skin.

‘Did you know about this, Kayla?’ demands Jennifer when the fuss dies down. ‘Is that why you ran off when I tried to speak to you in the shop this morning?’

‘Yep. You have no idea how difficult it’s been keeping this quiet, but I knew if I told you it would be all around the… oops.’

‘All around what? Are you implying I can’t keep a secret?’ snorts Jennifer, Salt Bay’s biggest gossip whose encyclopaedic knowledge of every local affair, peccadillo and nose job is unmatched in the area.

‘We’re getting married in mid-September and we’d love the choir to sing at our wedding, which will be in this church.’

Kayla gives me a wink for coming to her rescue.

‘We’d be honoured,’ says Florence, ruddy cheeks glowing bright against her steel-grey hair. And the rest of the choir murmur in agreement.

‘And you’re all invited to a reception afterwards at Tregavara House,’ adds Josh. ‘Nothing fancy but it should be lots of fun.’

‘Hey, Annie, you’d better sit down,’ shouts Roger. ‘Apparently it’s not good to be on your feet too much in the early days.’

‘You what?’

When I look at him in confusion, Kayla starts sniggering: ‘He thinks you’re up the duff ’cos you’re getting hitched so quickly.’

‘I’m definitely not pregnant, Roger.’ I grin at Pippa, who’s due in a few weeks’ time and looks like she has a beach ball stuffed up her T-shirt. ‘There’s just no point in waiting and we’d like to have the reception in the garden so I’m hoping to catch an Indian summer before the bad weather sets in.’

Everyone nods, having experienced unforgiving Cornish winters when the wind is stiff with salt spray and wellies are the footwear of choice. Cornwall in the summer can be glorious. However in the winter, as Kayla’s already discovered, not so much. And I’d rather not be married in a freezing gale with disorientated seagulls smacking me in the face.

I’m also keen to have the reception at Tregavara House as soon as possible – before something else falls off or falls in and it gets harder to justify spending money on anything other than the house. Josh went pale when I showed him the email from the roofing company and sometimes in the early hours, when sleep is impossible and courage deserts me, selling my ancestral home feels like the only long-term solution.

‘Well, I think your great-aunt would be delighted at your news,’ says Mary from the soprano section. ‘This church hasn’t seen a Trebarwith wedding since Alice and David walked down the aisle so it’s lovely that you’re getting married here. A Salt Bay wedding will be wonderful!’

‘It’ll be Emily and Tom next,’ says Kayla, who can be a right old stirrer. She gives Emily a thumbs up.

‘Ooh, are you young things courting? That’s lovely. Here, have a cupcake to celebrate.’ Maureen delves into her carrier bag and thrusts a squashed butterfly cake into Tom’s hands.

‘I think we’re just friends, aren’t we, Em?’ says Tom, glumly, taking a huge bite of chocolate sponge. Buttercream squishes across his upper lip and sticks to his fledgling moustache.

‘Yeah, best friends,’ mumbles Emily, her face red-hot with embarrassment.

‘Excuse me!’ Arthur is waving his hand in the air like he’s back at school. ‘We’re happy to sing at your wedding but you won’t expect us to perform that dreadful Robin Hood song, will you? That one about everything you do being for you? If so, I’m afraid I’ll have to abstain on principle.’

‘Don’t worry, Arthur. It’ll be old-fashioned songs and hymns all the way,’ Josh reassures him with a glance at me and I nod in agreement. After being rootless for so long, I’d like our special day to be steeped in family tradition and echoes from the past. Maybe we can include music that Alice and Josh’s mum had on their wedding days.

It takes a while for the choir to settle down after the wedding announcement. But all in all, the rehearsal goes pretty well and Maureen’s cupcakes go down even better during the break. We decamp to the Whistling Wave when we’re all sung out and Kayla was right – Josh and I are plied with drinks and don’t need to get our money out once. Everyone’s delighted for us and, since the death of Alice has rocked the community hard, seems happy to have something to celebrate at last.

Kayla’s kept busy behind the bar because she’s off to the Lake District with Ollie tomorrow and Roger’s getting his wages’ worth out of her while he can.

‘When will you be back?’ I ask her as she pushes a gleaming glass under the gin optic with one hand and pushes the till drawer closed with the other.

‘Friday.’ She rolls her eyes and swooshes the gin with tonic before banging it down in front of Maureen. ‘He’s still going through with this ridiculous charade but at least I get a few days away out of it. Though it’s up North which everyone keeps warning me is grim, and the weather forecast is awful. I was quite keen to get out of baking-hot Australia for a while with this colouring’ – she waggles a strand of auburn hair in front of her green eyes – ‘but there is a limit and I think the Water District might be it.’

‘The Lake District. And what if it’s not a charade, Kayla – which Josh says it definitely isn’t? What if Ollie really is going to move up there, whether you go with him or not?’

‘He wouldn’t. He’d never leave me and his family behind,’ scoffs Kayla. But uncertainty flickers across her face before Gerald bangs a tenner on the bar and insists on buying me and Josh a short to celebrate. We are going to be totally bladdered but what the hell! You only get married once, fingers crossed, and it’s lovely that everyone’s so happy for us.

The only person not likely to relish the Trebarwiths and Pascos being legally joined is Toby – but he’s just going to have to lump it.