The place just got weirder and weirder.

So I wore my glitzy baubles, thinking they might be over the top but at least they’d be unforgettable, which meant I would be too, and from what I’d heard about him, Hereward Brunswick was unlikely to be big in the bling department so there wouldn’t be a lot of competition.

Then, just as I was gilding the lily with a bit of blusher, this sort of factory foghorn blasted out right under my window, and suddenly the lawn outside was full of scurrying octogenarians heading, presumably, for the dining room. I hurried down the three flights of stairs, where Moira collected me impatiently and rushed me into a big bare room full of long tables, a bit Dickensian apart from all the Formica.

‘You’ve missed the bar, I’m afraid, if you drink alcohol,’ she said blithely. ‘It opens for ten minutes before dinner to allow members to buy wine or have a pre-dinner drink, but I am a teetotaller, as are Deirdre and Felicity here.’

I exchanged stiff smiles with two more Moira clones, then she quickly introduced me to the other members of the committee, whose names I decided to forget instantly, and call all the women Moira and the men Ted, which served them right for their tendency to call me Nina.

I took my place as directed in the only empty chair at the end of the table, and then they said we might as well begin, and would I like to do the honours?

The honours? Of course! So I joined my hands and said quickly: ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord God make us truly thankful,’ which showed a trusting faith, as it turned out.

One of the Moiras said, ‘Thank you, dear: and now perhaps you’d like to dish out?’

‘Dish out?’ I echoed, then realized that all the serving dishes and the stack of plates were lined up right in front of me, and was informed that the person in the catbird seat always served, and they took it in turns.

Clearly it was all a cunning plot. Had I known I was doling out the slop like a dinner lady I wouldn’t have worn my best suit, that’s for sure, besides all this not being quite how I had expected to be treated as tonight’s guest of honour and speaker.

Anyway, I stood up and took the lid off the biggest dish, and there was this huge, glistening white mound like the Quatermass experiment gone wrong, and one of the Teds exclaimed: ‘Oh, goody, mashed potatoes!’

Then I took the lids off the other two and there were sausages – one each – and pallid life-leached vegetables that looked as though they’d been cooked for a month.

Oh, yummy!