Well, occasionally our humdrum Caribbean lives have a brush with royalty, fleeting as it may be.

Today’s touch of majesty comes from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. On St Patrick’s day, as the royal blog Luxarazzi reports, they were on hand for the annual Irish Guards’ parade in Aldershot during which the Duchess handed the traditional sprigs of shamrock to the Officers and Guardsmen. Together they also unveiled a painting of some thirty Irish Guards officers by British painter Lindy Allfrey.

Lindy Allfrey, a well-known portraitist, is the grand-niece of Dominican writer Phyllis Shand Allfrey, author of The Orchid House. She is the granddaughter of Rosalind Shand Allfrey, Phyllis’s sister. The two sisters (Phyllis and Rosalind) married brothers, hence their shared married name. Lindy Allfrey has retained her connections to Dominica and was a crew member and extra in Horace Ové’s television film of The Orchid House.