• I’ve been off to Warwick University today, for a campus tour with my son. It’s the start of the long year of University applications and this was the first Uni to go and visit.

    We arrived and got ourselves registered and waited for our party to be led of round the campus by Patrick, a soon to be second year student, seeing all the major sites and getting a feel for the place.

    As I looked around I realised that you could easily pair up the parent to the child if they were separated or if you had a collection of random photos. So many variations – ethnicity, hair colour, skin tones, nose shapes, eye colour and shape, and that indescribable something that is kindredness – a way of walking, talking and holding oneself. I guess the young people have reached that age were they are looking like their grown-up selves and so look like mini versions of their parents

    And yet each student had that same air of excitement and worry – it’s AS levels results day tomorrow and that will determine where they will aim for.

  • dinodestroyermummymenaceOh! I forgot to mention that the first two books of my new series, Monster Boy, were published on the third of this month by Orchard Book, whith whom I have an awful lot of books published.

    Monster Boy is half monster half human and has a way with monsters, so he is the number one agent for the Ministry of Monsters – It’s a lot of fun.

    There are eight books in the series. The hardbacks are coming out two a month and the paper backs will come out next year.

    It’s been a lot of work over the last year. The artwork is all done on Adobe Flash. I worked out a style with Flash when I wrote Ricky Rocket. Since then I’ve got cleverer at the software, but have made it harder on myself too.

    My next two series will be drawn by hand on paper – Hooray! You can drive yourself crazy staring at a screen all day – give me paper.

    My next two series? Yes, I’m just starting out on an eight book series called Axel Storm and today I heard that Orchard have agreed to acquire another eight book series set in ancient Greece, so my holiday was a research trip too!

    Now I’d better try and find a bit of time to bring my website up to date and get some Monster Boys stuff on there.

  • Hair-dried Barbecue
    Hair-dried Barbecue

    Us chaps do like to be in on the lighting and coaxing of a barbecue. I’ve seen various ways of doing it, dried kindling, fire lighters, petrol, meths, paper – all these methods then require a bit of blowing to get things heated up.

    Personally, I’ve started to use a blow torch! That gets it alight pretty quick. I build a pyramid of charcoal and light it, then I tear up a piece of corrugated cardboard from a box and use it to fan the flames until it’s red hot and going nicely. Then I spread the coals out and fan some more so that they are evenly distributed.

    Vasilis, our host and landlord on holiday in Greece, had his own ideas. His barbecue was made from an old water tank cut in half lengthways. I’m not sure what he used to help get the fire started, but I came across him at the hair drier stage! Yes, he was blowing the flames with a hair drier – and boy did it work well? He had to cover his arm because there were so many sparks and it got up to a pretty roaring heat very quickly. The whole thing is designed to take a lamb or a piglet for roasting.

    We had home made Greek sausage and Souvlakis which were fab, accompanied by roast vegetables, stuffed vegetables and baby okra. What a meal!