Wet and foggy day.

Bearing in mind that we had a posh lunch booked, I just had a coffee at breakfast. Jean tucked in as usual, even though she was starting a cold.

Today was the day that the clock didn’t go forward an hour at midday, so we had an extra hour to attend two talks. The first was Josh Levine, about Operation Fortitude, a successful British double agent operation just before D-Day in World War II. Very interesting and informative.

The second was Sue Cameron, the Hollywood reporter, who we saw yesterday. Today, she was covering her involvement with rock stars of the 60s and 70s – much more my cup of Darjeeling. So we had everybody from Elvis Presley, via Rick Nelson, Mama Cass Elliot, Janis Joplin, Carole King and many others, finishing up with Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison of The Doors. Again, she expressed some pretty strong personal opinions, and I couldn’t escape the feeling that she was embellishing the contact she’d had with these stars, even to the extent that maybe she hadn’t met them at all. To be fair, it was geared more to an American audience. Cynical Brit? Moi?

Time for our posh lunch, then. This didn’t get off to the best start, as we turned up at our appointed time of 2 p.m., which was apparently too late, as they stopped serving lunch at 1.30. As far as we could gather, this was something to do with the hour not lost, or some such. Anyway, we got seated, but the service was rather rushed as if they wanted to get rid of us.

Despite this, the meal was excellent. We both had the lemon sole, and the dessert was a splendid Pavlova, which we shared.

Down to earth thereafter, as we got the last session of washing done. These things are important, you know….

I went down to the Chart Room lounge to listen to Amethyst, the duo that had got the pub rocking the other night. Much smoother, but far less involving. Pity.

Neither of us was particularly hungry, and there was some stupid gala evening on which necessitated dressing up, so we went to the King’s Court buffet for a snack. It was fine.

Thence to the early performance by the Royal Court Theatre Company. Another evening full of song, dance and acrobatics, but no discernible theme again. Enjoyable enough.

We were discouraged, but not banned, from entering the Commodore Club, as I was improperly dressed. 🙄 So we went down the pub.

Much more fun and a lot livelier, with an Irish folk duo doing their excellent stuff on the guitar/banjo and the penny whistle. Great way to finish the evening.

Time, then, for bed. Outline plans have been hatched for tomorrow, so join us to find out what those are and also whether we were able to stick with them.