"Can't, I'm afraid," she said ruefully. "It's the nature of the current affairs game, the clue's in the title. And anyway, I'm rarely in London. It's only if a Cornish story breaks and transfers dramatically like that one did — which couldn't have ended up being more parochial, by the way. Boy gets shell stuck up nose on Rock Beach and is flown by private helicopter to Great Ormond Street because Russian oligarch parents don't think Newquay Hospital is up to it."

“Stop it."

“I swear! So your trusty, probing reporter was rushed to the bedside. I nearly whipped out my tweezers and hooked it out myself as we waited for the doctor, it would have been quicker."

"But at least you're fronting it all now," I said admiringly. "I mean, anchorwoman. How cool is that?"

"It's better," she admitted.

"And down here! Presumably this is the gig you wanted? You must have been thrilled when it came up?"

"Oh, hundred percent. Dream come true. Totally where my heart is. Not that I hadn't lobbied for it, of course. It didn't exactly come up. I shoved." She grinned.

"You don't say."

Shona pretty much got what she wanted in life.

"And to be fair, no one else did, they all wanted London." She sipped her wine and her dark eyes flashed at me above the rim. "But in ten years’ time they'll all want this, of course, and I'm not budging. Oh — mussels, please," she glanced up at the waiter who was hovering expectantly. "And chips. They're brilliant here," she told me.

“The same, please." He departed. "And Paddy? He likes it here, too?"

"Paddy's happy if I'm happy," she said airily, breaking into her bread roll. "Which sounds arrogant and probably is, but temperamentally he could live in a cave, he doesn't really notice his surroundings. And also, realistically, he can work anywhere, which I can't. And the kids love it. Can't keep them off the beach."

"And he's working? Writing?" I asked cautiously.

"Just had his second book accepted by Heinemann. And the Tate are backing it up with an exhibition — it's a biography of Charles the First, who was a demon art collector."

"Oh wow, that's amazing." It really was. Paddy was a huge, handsome academic. A lovely man she'd met at Durham who wrote biographical history, but it wasn't always lucrative. Shona pretty much kept the financial wheels on the bus, but this sounded promising.

“That's the Tate St Ives, not The Tate," she told me dryly.

"But still. He's got a two-book deal. And he's unofficially been offered History professor at Exeter University. He hears for sure next week."

My eyes popped dramatically at her across the table. I let my jaw drop. “Shona — that's huge!"

She was deliberately underplaying it, but I could tell she was thrilled. A smile escaped her. "Well, it takes us to a dual-income family, which I agree is pretty huge."

"We should have ordered champagne."