I thought I’d lost my faithful Swiss Army pocket knife when I checked into security at Birmingham airport. Normally I put it in my suitcase, but this time it was still in my pocket! I was allowed to go and buy a jiffy bag and stamps and post it back to myself. It would have been a sad day if I’d had to hand it over forever.

However, the temporary loss of my penknife did not impact on my visit to Jersey in the Channel Islands. The plane stops at Guernsey first, where I visited schools in 2010. You can see my trip videos here, and here, and here.

I was met by Linne, from the Young Readers’ Department of Jersey Library, who generously showed me around the island a bit. It’s full of castles and lovely beaches and romantic, wooded valleys that are very evident from the air as you come into land.

As a strategic island, it bears the marks of warfare over the centuries, with castles and fortresses, napoloeonic martelloi towers and a good deal of concrete gun emplacements from when the Nazis occupied the island in WW2.

I had a lovely time in the library, which had really gone to town with the Creepy House Theme. There was a creepy house – or garden shed! – a ghost train and a creepy queueing system as there are about 1000 children doing the Summer Reading Challenge in St Helier alone! The Children’s library is a very busy place over the summer!

I told scary stories and showed how to draw the Pizza Man and Frankatstein’s Monster and all the children did wonderful drawings.

Many thanks, again, for a great trip and I hope I’ll be able to come back again one day.