• I thought it would be fun to show how an ellipse is constructed, as they are the starting shape of so many drawings. You will need nails or pins and a hammer! Do not do this on a nice table! use an drawing board or something that is not expensive or important. Ask if you are not sure!

  • Hooray! The Government seem to have seen sense and appear to have completely pulled out of the Forestry sell-off scheme. I’m sure there are a load of upset bankers who are wondering what they are now going to do with all their quanitativley-eased bonuses, but I’m not really bothered about them.

    Good – that’s one bit of nonsense over and done with. Now we can put all our energy into the nonsense that is library closures. When will this Government realise that it’s Big Society is quite happy with the way things are run already. The Big Society says: No to change for changes sake.

  • What a great name – Clehonger – it’s a village to the west of Hereford and yesterday, Valentine’s Day, I visited the primary school for their Exciting Writing Week.The theme was Around The World, and I spent a bit of time trying to find around the world links to my books. Having done so, I hunted out some props from my visits to places I’ve lived or visited in my past that have inspired some of my books.

    I talked about Viking Vik, who lives where my Norwegian Auntie has a summer house, and How the Rhioceros hot his skin, which is set somewhere around Aden, where I lived as a boy, and Axel Storm Jungle Fortress, which is set in a jungle very like one I visited on the Island of Guam. Japanese soldiers on Guam, that never surrendered until the 1970’s, were also an inspiration for this book.

    I was interviewed by young journalists working on the school newspaper. I was flummoxed by one question, “Do you have any hobbies?”

    Of course I don’t, Everything I do is my hobby! Thinking about it, with the children, I realised just how lucky I am. I think it is most people’s dream to be able to do what they enjoy most all day, and that’s pretty much what I get to do!

    Thanks everyone for making it such a great day. I picked up a cold last week, so I hope I didn’t appear to be not working on all cylinders!