Robo-Runners

Over the past few weeks I've been busy visiting schools around Great Britain and busy writing new stories.... My publishers have bee busy too. I've recently discovered that Hatchette Children's Books are going to reprint all of The Robo-Runners Books - and are also going to publish them as e-books so that you can download them on your Kobo's, Kindle's and other e-readers....

To make this new publication even better, the lovely people at Hachette Children's Books are publishing the Robo-runners Books with nice new covers.

Here is the cover of the first book - The Tin Man....


What do you think???

 

Happy New Year and Snow, Snow, Snow...

We've had quite a lot of snow over the weekend but that didn't stop us getting out of the house. On Saturday, Vicky and I went for a walk through Wepre Woods and up to Ewloe Castle... It was lovely walking through the crisp, crunchy snow. The rest of this diary entry is going to be brightened up by a few pictures that I took as we walked along... There are hundreds of castles here in Wales and I'm planning to write a few diary entries about the different one's I come across as I travel around so I will tell you more about Ewloe Caste very soon....

Can't believe that it's been so long since I posted anything in my diary. I had planned to make a New Years Resolution to write a diary post each week.... at least one and hopefully more. So far not so good. This is the first post of the New Year. The time just seems to be flying by.

We had a lovely Christmas and hope that you did too... Right now I'm busy working on some new stories - books of my own and some books for educational reading series that you might see in your schools very soon.

I've had quite a bit of good news over the last few weeks - my Rob-runners books are going to be reprinted with nice new covers - and they are going to be available to download onto Kobo and Kindle e-readers very soon too... I will let you have a look at the new covers soon.

Tomorrow I will be visiting St Anne's Catholic Primary School in Ormskirk (hopefully the snow will stay away until then) and on Thursday I 'm off to the Venerable Edward Morgan Primary School in Shotton (just down the road).

See you all soon....

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Christmas is approaching very quickly and we've not even written our Christmas cards yet. We will be doing that tonight and getting them in the post straight away. We have put our tree up though - we spent Monday doing our Christmas shopping and the evening putting up our tree and other decorations. 

As you can see, we've decorated it all in Red, White and Silver. It looks perfect - the pictures here really don't do it justice though. 

Over the last couple of years we've picked up a few interesting decorations from different places and each one reminds us of where we bought them and what we were doing which makes the tree feel all that more special. We bought a couple of little decorations when we visited Bourton On The Water last weekend and we also bought one from Harrod's when we visited London.

A Lovely Weekend

On Friday we drove down to Bourton On The Water in Gloucestershire - the weekend was a wedding gift from a couple of our good friends. We set off at at half ten on Friday morning and made our way through torrential rain down the motorway to the lovely little village... thankfully the rain stopped just as we arrived so we were able to have a little walk around before finding somewhere nice and cozy for tea.

A river runs through the middle of the village, with little bridges crossing from one side to the other so you can walk or drive across. It was nice and peaceful and we had a couple of perfect days wandering round the shops and sampling some of the food and drink that was on offer in the little pubs :-) ...

At night, Christmas decorations shone from the shop windows and from some of the lamp posts... but best of all was the Christmas tree that stands proudly in the river. Nice and Christmassy...

Bourton-On-The-Water

Tonight we are spending a romantic evening together at Bourton-On-The-Water... a wedding gift from some good friends who a looking after Con. Spending tomorrow all together for some festive fun...

Boofle came along for the ride - here he is enjoying a glass of pop...

Robo-Runners Clip

We've had a busy couple of weeks with one thing and another (painting and decorating at home, a trip to London, gas boiler breaking down) and yet again I've not had chance to write a blog post - despite promising fellow author Chris d'Lacey that I would write one on The Next Big Thing... Sorry Chris, I will get this done tomorrow (a week late). Chris d'Lacey is the author of lots of brilliant books - including the excellent (and best-selling) series, The Last Dragon Chronicles. To find out about the next Big Thing that Chris is working on you can visit his web diary by clicking HERE - it's exciting stuff. As well as visiting his website and reading his books, you can keep up to date with what Chris is doing on twitter @chrisdlacey

The Robo-Runners clip that was shown on BBC2 as part of Bringing Books To Life is now available on the internet and can be viewed by clicking HERE. I've been trying to embed it into my website but have been having a bit of trouble doing so.

Lots to write about in my diary so watch this space for photographs from our wedding, and photographs and news of our trip to London over the past weekend - and lots more... 

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...