After an all-night flight, we landed at Heathrow and took the tube to Paddington Station. Our train to Torquay didn’t leave for hours, so we walked around outside and found a park where we rehearsed our “Lost Lingo” presentation.

Later, we had lunch at Mad Bishop and Bear. According to the story, the railway acquired the land for Paddington Station from a parish whose bishop must have been “mad” to part with it so cheaply. The bear is the one who eats marmalade sandwiches.

Seeing the English countryside from the train was lovely, although it was hard to stay awake with the jet lag kicking in. We had heard that Torquay had its own microclimate and was warmer than the rest of England, but we were still surprised to see so many palm trees!

The train station was only a mile from the hotel, and we decided to walk there, dragging our suitcases, so we could see the city. As its name implies, Torquay is both hilly (the tor) and seaside (the quay). It has long been a resort community, even in Agatha Christie’s time, with beautiful public buildings, several beaches, recreational boating access, and lodgings of all types.

The hotel we stayed at was on the top of a hill. Every morning as we ate our full English breakfast, we could see impressive architecture and statuary. I imagine most of the view from the dining room window would have been the same when Agatha lived here. Many of the other Festival speakers also stayed at this hotel, and it was fun to run into them in the lobby and share notes.

The International Agatha Christie Festival is held at Torre Abbey, which is not quite as far away as the train station, so we walked there every day. It’s across the bay from the downtown area, so one way to get there is to walk across the beach. A few of the days were a little cool, but we also had some lovely seventy-degree weather, so the walk was quite pleasant.

We could also walk across the park, which was gorgeous. Even though summer was drawing to a close, there were beds full of flowers and secluded little pocket gardens tucked into the main park. Also plenty of palm trees and the sea in the background!

Torre Abbey was founded in 1196 and was closed by Henry VIII in 1539. It then became the home of the Cary family who lived there for nearly 300 years. Today, it’s mainly a museum with a small tearoom and a spectacular enclosed garden with a greenhouse. Although we were very busy with the Festival, we did pop into the Viking exhibit that was going on when we were there and we toured the garden one afternoon as well.

The abbey garden was also the setting for Saturday night’s Garden Party. Don and I dressed nicely for this event, but some folks went all out! Many people came in fancy 1920s or ‘30s period garb and several Poirots and Miss Marples were in attendance. We all had glasses of champagne to sip while we listened to the jazz band which, among other tunes, played the theme songs from the Poirot and Marple TV shows. We were also treated to a Miss Marple short story, read by the actress Annette Badland. Badland has a slew of stage, film, and TV credits, and has appeared in a couple of Christie adaptations.

Also on the Torre Abbey grounds is the Spanish Barn. Originally built in about 1200, the barn’s original purpose was to store grain and hay collected as taxes paid to the abbey by their farming tenants. It’s called the Spanish Barn, however, because it also served as a prison for almost 400 men captured by the English in 1588 during the Spanish Armada invasion. It was in this Spanish Barn that most of the Literary Festival presentations were held.

One Festival attraction that was not in the Spanish Barn was a Christie-themed model railway built by a team that competed in the Great Model Railway Challenge. Set up in the Medieval Undercroft of the Abbey, the model railway featured scenes from Death on the Nile, Murder on the Links, The 4:50 from Paddington, and several other novels. There was also a quiz to see if you could name the books from a single visual clue. I’m ashamed to admit that they stumped me on a couple!

We stopped by the Spanish Barn the day before the Literary Festival officially started to see the space and meet our hosts. Isn’t the room stunning? In the photo with us is Jo, the amazing Volunteer Coordinator who we started working with nearly a year ago, and Matt, the enthusiastic Creative Director who put the Festival together, along with one of the many friendly volunteers we met over the weekend.

Here is what the Spanish Barn looked like when it was all set up for presentations. The total capacity is around 200, but the bookstore took up some space in the back. Still, for some events, there were probably 150 people or more in attendance. At the front was a screen and stage. A podium and microphone was available for those giving presentations, and chairs were lined up for panel discussions. About midway, there were two additional screens to help those in the back see better, and a sound booth run by a very patient young man named Tim. Or was it Tom? Not sure we ever got a straight answer on that!

We attended every presentation we could and enjoyed them all. Some of our favorites were Agatha Travels with Andrew Eames, Miss Marple and the Secret History of Female Sleuths with Caitlin Davies, and the Art & Artists of Agatha Christie with David Morris. Kemper Donovan, on whose podcast I was a guest in August, held an All About Agatha live panel discussion on The Greatest Screen Adaptation. We also enjoyed Agatha Christie She Watched with Teresa Peschel. Teresa and husband Bill, who is also a Christie expert, were very friendly and even offered us a special throat tea to prepare for our presentation!

I’m afraid I got a bit fan-girly around all of these Agatha Christie authorities! I follow their posts and own their books, so it was quite a thrill to meet them in person. And then I found out that they had actually heard of me, too! David Morris and his wife were lovely people to talk with, and Dr. Mark Aldridge, shown here, has an enthusiasm for all things Christie that is just infectious.

Dr. John Curran wrote his doctoral thesis on Agatha Christie and was granted extraordinary access to Agatha’s archives by her grandson, the overseer of her estate, Matthew Prichard. His research was published as Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks which organizes Christie’s notes and tries to make sense of her thought process when plotting the novels. Yes, I got to meet him, and he even complimented me on Agatha Annotated!

Speaking of Mathew Prichard, he was at the Festival, too. We were hesitant to introduce ourselves because he must get awful tired of the attention, but one of the volunteers encouraged us. We tried to be very respectful and didn’t say much more than how pleased we were to be at the Festival. His wife broke in because he was wanted elsewhere, but she stopped to say that her mother has my book, and while she couldn’t attend the Festival, would have liked to have seen Lost Lingo! I did not think it appropriate for a fangirl photo with Mr. Prichard. This one was taken earlier during the Festival.

Meeting the celebrated Agatha Christie authorities was certainly a thrill, but it was also great fun to meet the fans attending. We talked with more than one person studying Christie and her work for their university degree or teaching Christie at their school. A number of people come to this Festival every year, while for others, this is their first time. Some people are actually bigger fans of the TV shows or the movies than the books. A few people came in costume. Sandra had a different, stunning outfit for every day of the Festival!

So how did our Lost Lingo presentation go? I was SO nervous to talk in front of all of those fans and experts! Just before our time, I went to the ladies’ room. While I was washing my hands, the woman next to me said “You are the author?” and she held up a copy of Agatha Annotated! Katia came from Italy to attend the Festival and said that the glossary was helping her read Christie’s work since English is not her first language. Meeting Katia was just the boost I needed to get up on stage!

I was still nervous, but we had practiced the heck out of that presentation. The intent never was to have the whole thing memorized but to be very comfortable about our talking points as the slides were shown on the screen. The room was very nearly full, which was both exciting and humbling.

Lost Lingo shared some of the words from the Agatha Annotated glossary as well as some stories about the research and the experts who helped me. In between, Don talked about the technical aspects of creating the online database and organizing all the information. Were we perfect? Of course not. But it went really, really well, and I think people enjoyed it. Afterward, I signed books, and the line was amazingly long! That was an experience I won’t soon forget!

Even though it felt like we were go-go-going all the time, there was so much we didn’t get to at the Festival and in Torquay. I suspect next year’s Festival will be even better, with even more Christie-related topics to explore, and I would love to go again, but it’s such a long plane and train ride away! Well, Agatha, we’ll just have to see…