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By the time the children, who looked adorable as reindeer, mounted the stage with Pickles, the show was in full force. I had to watch this, so again, I snuck round to where I could almost see. They sang and danced enthusiastically but Pickles was trying to get his antlers– possibly to eat – and he ran around in so many circles he ended up falling off the stage.

There was a bit of a commotion, but one of the dancers caught him and put him back on stage. He seemed relatively unharmed as he resumed trying to eat his antlers. The children, professional as ever, kept going and they got the biggest cheer of the night so far.

With the Nativity about to begin, it was all still going well. Snowball, George, Hana, and myself were ready to go. We looked like sheep, and I know this because we all had the same costumes and I saw how the others looked. Even the woolly hats made us more sheep-like. Hana looked the best because she was small and round, but we all looked pretty amazing, I thought. We didn’t like dressing up, as a rule, but I was willing to make an exception. It was for a good cause.

‘Break a leg,’ George said, before we were due to go on.

‘Why on earth would we do that?’ Snowball asked.

‘Oh boy, it’s a showbiz term, means good luck,’ he hissed. ‘But you’re not supposed to say good luck as it’s bad luck and now I have. Twice. Oh no!’

‘Calm down, George, it’ll be fine, and how do you know all this anyway?’

‘I’ve been in the business longer than any of you,’ he said. Of course.

The Nativity was flawless, almost. Mary and Joseph arrived at the Airbnb on a tandem. Mary (Sylvie) had a pillow in her dress and Connie was holding Theo backstage.

‘There’s no room in my Airbnb. My business is very popular and successful; in fact I consistently get five stars on trip advisor so, no, there’s nothing for you, here,’ Polly said and everyone laughed. I didn’t get it, but it was apparently quite funny.

Before we knew it, it was our turn with the shepherds. I was actually quite nervous as I mounted the stage. My legs were shaking. I gave Snowball a reassuring look as George ran ahead. We all did our sheep impression, George bounding around taking centre stage while we hung back, pretending to eat grass as well as shuffling around a bit. I don’t think any of us wanted to steal George’s limelight, especially as the audience seemed to be lapping it up. We all became still as the lights dimmed and the song ‘While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night’ began, sung beautifully by Ralph’s choir. Then we were told about the baby Jesus and we set off to meet him after being herded up by Tomasz, who, because he had this sort of head covering on which fell over his face a bit, stepped on my tail.

‘Yelp,’ I said, not sounding like a sheep at all.

‘Sorry,’ he whispered as he adjusted his head piece. Apart from that, I thought it was a very authentic representation. And when Peter juggled the toy sheep he only dropped them once, so that was a definite improvement, as he closed our first part.

The choir sang again, and after that a break– or interval, as Aleksy called it – the stage was set and ready for the last part of the Nativity.

When we arrived at the stable where the baby Jesus was born, we all looked on curiously– not sure if sheep did that, but they did in our play. Theo started bawling suddenly, causing us all to jump back, but Sylvie put a dummy in his mouth and that stopped him. Apparently they didn’t have dummies in Jesus’ time, but as Aleksy said, needs must.

After the finale when Santa Harold came and sat in the armchair, pretended to fall asleep and the children found him there– which was a very sweet scene – he got up and started throwing treats out to the audience, who were all trying to catch them, and then as many people as possible crowded on stage and sang ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’. It was over too quickly and as the curtain closed, the audience clapped and cheered with gusto. The curtains opened and everyone bowed again. Well, we tried, but it’s not easy to bow when you’re a cat.

I was exhausted but, for some reason, I couldn’t wait until we got to do it again.

‘That was brilliant, wasn’t it, Dad?’ George said, eyes sparkling.

‘It was, George, and I now see why you were so keen about stage stuff,’ I said.

Backstage was once again chaotic as people tried to change out of costumes and props were tidied up.

‘Can I help with the cats?’ Barbara asked. I narrowed my eyes. Not likely.

‘That’d be great, thank you,’ Claire said. Barbara picked me up and I resisted the urge to jump out of her arms. She had behaved perfectly since the day that we foiled her plan, and Harold was convinced she was a nice lady. She gently took my costume off and then put me down. Wow, that felt better, my fur felt free again.

‘There you go, Alfie,’ she said, kindly. ‘You were all very good sheep.’

Maybe she wasn’t all bad after all.