You couldn’t have written the script any more neatly.
I didn’t read Anne’s message as I was finally getting my s**t together after feeling somewhat worse for wear from the night before.
We had finally had our meal in the grand ballroom, after missing it the previous evening, and had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves dressing up in shimmery little numbers. It felt like we were part of a stage set, assuming bit part characters from The Great Gatsby. Virtually everyone else eating there were also dressing for dinner. I even saw two women with feathery headbands which was superb. A pre-dinner cocktail and canopé selection got us in the mood for the evening, and possibly contributed toward my delicate state this morning.
The dinner was lovely. One of those posh meals where you enjoy interesting taste combinations, and are really glad of the side bread to help fill you up. The free bottle of wine was followed by one more, and our meal was accompanied by a lovely pianist, who skilfully managed to play a variety of tunes non-stop throughout, even at one point, continuing with one hand while the other swapped her music sheets around.
It was inevitable, therefore, that I was emerging from the bedroom a little late today. I had taken my book and glasses down, and as I walked into the Palm Court Lounge, it was unusually busy with people, mainly women of a discerning age. Some, sitting with coffees, some standing and milling. Anne had tucked herself away in the corner by the entrance, a little bit like Miss Marple, and had been observing the crowd. Her message had read: get down here, Lucy Worsley has just arrived. Bring book
This seemed to be a tour by the looks of it, of the buildings associated with Agatha Christie, which probably also included her Devonian country house, Greenway. The author of the very same book that I was currently reading wandered back into the room, and I was a little bit star-struck. She comes across as reserved, chatting amiably with people when they spoke to her, but not loudly, not proclaiming her presence. She was dressed in a red skirt and top, similar to her clothes in her documentaries, which I suppose stands to reason as she was in ‘work’ mode.
Despite feeling awkward, I strode up to her and said something to the following effect:
‘Hello Lucy, I’m very sorry to bother you, but I’m currently right in the middle of reading your book. Would you mind signing it for me’
‘You have excellent taste and yes of course’, she replied with her signature impish grin.
She was extremely gracious, but not self-deprecating, which, if I ever make a success of my writing, is the way I would like to come across as. I was over the moon, a proper fan girl.
Tonight we’re eating at the Pilchard Inn, a stone’s throw from the hotel, still on the island itself. The pub, or at least a version of it, has apparently been standing on this sight for over seven hundred years. There is a history of pilchard fishing going back many centuries. The ruins of this tiny shelter had been built for the ‘huer’, French for ‘shouter’. His job was to keep an eye on the waters ahead, looking for shoal activity. He’d shout for the fishermen to get their boats out and then direct them with their nets to the pilchards.
I wonder if pilchards are on the menu this evening.
theleadlesspencil 
What a coincidence to be reading Worsley’s book in THAT setting and the writer herself turn up! You couldn’t make it up, even as a piece of CNF.
In Cornwall, we’ve started calling pilchards ‘Cornish sardines’ to make them sound more sophisticated. I still call them pilchards, and love them. I do remember Ange in ‘Abigail’s Party’ describing her recipe for pilchard curry. And at the start of Alan Aykbourn’s ‘Bedroom Farce’, the married couple in bed are eating sardines on toast, the husband bemoaning the fact that he’d prefer pilchards.
I think what you’ve done here is open a can of…well, you get it by now.
By the way, you both look gorgeous!
Thank you kind sir!
Too cool!
Suitably glamorous!