• Firstly, Moira was sadly unable to attend her own retirement party, but lots of Authors and Illustrators made it through tube delays to the High Street Kensington party, yesterday.

    Peter Sheldon was his wonderful self. Peter and Moira have done wonderful work at Peter’s Bookselling Services, not only promoting the very best in Children’s books but also us authors and illustrators too. Many times Peter has phoned to see if I was available to visit a school or library. Somehow, He always managed to phone while I was feeding my chickens. Even now I don’t have chickens he’s convinced he can hear them in the background. We will all miss him in the business. He is a brilliant organiser of parties and events, making you feel special and instantly at home. I know many librarians look forward to their day or two at Peter’s showrooms in Birmingham, where they too are made very welcome and left to browse and choose among the endless shelves of wonders. It is a children’s book nerds paradise!

    Here are some pictures: right click on the pictures to make them a bit bigger

  • My dear wife was clearing out her button box and cane across this wonderful specimen. They must have been inherited from her mother. They reek of a brave new world – the red hot heat of technology.

  • My mother lives with us, in her own part of the house which I pretty much built myself. Her shower pump has stopped working, so yesterday I went to make a list of things to get so I could put the new one in. This time I was going to do it properly and get the cold water connected to the low pressure feed from the attic. I pushed one of the old pump’s connectors to one side to get a better look and it snapped! Hot water began spraying all over the floor.

    Panic seizes the brain. I could not think where to turn the water off. Slowly it came back to me. the red handle in the airing cupboard. So, I averted that crisis. While mopping up, I realised I would have to get on with the job. I went off to get the parts and got to work.

    Using a blow torch in a confined space is not a good idea. The confined space was essentially a chimney, so I couldn’t get one of the joints hot enough to melt the solder. By the time I realised I should get an old-fashioned compression joint – one you do with spanners – the shops were shut.

    Also, by this stage, I realised that the pipe that I thought was the low pressure feed, was in fact the same mains pipe I’d used before. The whole afternoon had been a waste of time. I was convinced there was a low pressure pipe hiding under the floor boards, but it now seems there isn’t.

    My simple job has now turned into a major bathroom refit. I have to rip off the side wall of the shower so I can bring a new pipe down from the attic. That means rebuilding the whole vanity unit redecorating.

    Not what I had set out to do. It never rains but it pours!