Another Busy Week

It's been a busy week. On Sunday evening I spent four and a half hours driving down to Eastcote, Middlesex so that I could spend all day on Monday visiting Newnham Junior School. I had a great time at school meeting all the wonderful staff and children and sharing stories and poems, and generally having lots of book fun. Fellow author, Mark Robson was at the school too - I haven't seen Mark for a couple of years so it was great having the chance to catch up with him. 

The rest of the week has been spent writing and painting and decorating at home. The kitchen is almost finished, but once it is it will be time to make a start on the living room. Hoping to get it all finished in time to put the Christmas decorations up.

Tomorrow I'm visiting Mountain Lane Primary School in Buckley - only a ten minute drive from home - so here's a BIG HELLO to everyone there. See you all soon...

Damian and Vicky's Wedding

I've not written anything in my diary for quite a while. You might thing that this is because nothing much has been happening recently but let me tell you - the exact opposite is true... in fact there has been so much happening recently that I've not had chance to sit down and write in my diary. 

I've been busy writing of course - have put the finishing touches to a couple of little plays (I can tell you more about those later), and I have also been messing around with some other writing work.... more about that later too.... But the biggest and most important thing of all though is that on Saturday 27th October I got married to the most beautiful Victoria Harris - now Victoria Harvey. We haven't got many photographs from the wedding yet but they will be arriving very soon. We do have a couple of lovely photographs that have bee taken by other people though, including this one taken by one of our wonderful bridesmaids Rachel Harvey. 

If you can't wait to see  more photographs then you can take a look at a Photovid of our perfect day by clicking HERE. Our superb wedding photographers, Gaynor and Steve Godfrey (Rainbow Studios) did a fantastic job and we would highly recommend them to anyone.

Bringing Books To Life

I was really excited when, a few weeks ago, I was asked if Robo Runners could be used on BBC 2 Bringing Books To Life. Of course, I said yes... The programme is described as 'A wonderful adventure into the worlds of some of the best children's books written for seven-to-ten-year-olds." Throughout the series, celebrity presenters talk about and read extracts for their favourite books - this is combined with animation to make the whole thing even more exciting. If you visit the BBC2 website you can watch the trailer for the programme, and a couple of other clips.

I was delighted to discover that Hannah England, Team GB athlete, was going to be reading an extract from Robo-Runners. 

The programme is due to be shown for the first time on Friday morning at 5AM (but hopefully parts of the programme - including the Robo Runners extract - will be shown again at other times on BBC and on CBBC). Click Robo Runners to go straight to the Robo Runners page where you can see more, and bigger pictures. As soon as the clip is available I will include it on my website... 

Other books being used in the series include, Roald Dahl's Georges Marvellous Medicine, Kenneth Graham's Wind in the Willows, Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant, Michael Morpurgo's Butterfly Lion and Philip Pullman's The Firework maker's Daughter.... so Crank and Al are in good company.  

Cowbridge and Llanwit Major

Had a good day today visiting libraries in the Vale Of Glamorgan - this morning I was at Cowbridge Library where I met the excellent pupils from year five and year six of Y Bont Faen Primary School, and this afternoon I was at Llantwit Major Library with the brilliant year four from Eagleswell Primary School - thanks to everyone for coming along and big thanks to everyone that dressed up as FUNGUS - you know who you are but I don't want to embarrass you here :-) 

I will pop a couple of posters in the post to you as soon as I can and I look forward to putting some of your work on my website...

At lunchtime I managed to have a quick walk around Cowbridge and I took a few photographs on my way... Cowbridge's Welsh name Y Bont Faen means 'The Stone Bridge' - it's a medieval walled town (although not all of the walls are still standing). There are lots of interesting things to see in the town though that date back to Roman and Medieval times...

It's never easy travelling from one place to another - even though I use my SATNAV as it doesn't always take you to exactly the right place - I found that out today as Cowbridge Library was hidden off the main street and Llantwit Major Library wasn't easily noticeable until I'd driven past it a couple of times... Luckily I have Boofle on board to help with directions... 

St Aubin's

A quick diary entry before I set off for today's library visits...

I had a great time yesterday at St Aubyn's School, Woodford Green where I got to meet all the wonderful children in Nursery, Reception, Year one and Year two (and their equally wonderful teachers of course). I even managed to meet people form some of the the other years at the end of the day in the book fair - thanks for stopping by.

A big thank you to Mrs Scott, the school librarian (also known as the Bookette - take a look at her excellent book review blog) for looking after me all day and for organising the days sessions. 

Whizzing off to Cowbridge Library in the Vale of Glamorgan now - and Llantwit Major Library this afternoon. See you soon.

St Aubyn's School

Next week is Book Week and I will be driving around England and Wales visiting schools and libraries.

On Monday morning I'll be kicking things off by visiting St Aubyn's School in Woodford Green, Essex, so here's a BIG HELLO to everyone at St Aubyn's - I'm very much looking forward to meeting you all.

I will be spending Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday visiting libraries around Wales - more about that next week, and on Friday I will be in Warrington visiting Birchwood CE Primary School... Phew!!! it's going to be a busy week.

Hopefully I will be able to take a few photographs while I'm travelling around so watch this space...

School Visits - Cambridge Road Primary School

Yesterday I spent the day at Cambridge Road Primary School in Ellesmere Port (and very nice it was too) sharing stories, poems and talking about writing and being a writer. After starting with a whole school assembly and silly story I thought I was going to lose my voice. I croaked my way through the second session with Nursery and Reception but thankfully, after a break, everything was back to normal - Phew!!!

This willow elephant stands at the front of the school and I couldn't resist taking a picture of it as I left. Big thanks to everyone for all their questions and even bigger thanks to everyone that helped out with the stories by dressing up as Pirates and Cavemen...

Next week I'm visiting Ysgol Llanbedr in Denbighshire - so here's a BIG HELLO to everyone there, and also a BIG HELLO to all the ladies in Flint Library who I know come and read my diary from time to time.

Our wedding plans and preparations are coming along nicely - a good job too as there are only 36 days to go. On Wednesday of this week it was Rachel's turn to come down for her bridesmaid dress fitting... she looked absolutely lovely but you will have to wait until after the wedding to see pictures. Over the weekend we are getting shoes for the two youngest bridesmaids and next week we go to see the photographer... not many things left to arrange now... Very exciting.