• It was actually warm this afternoon and I got out into the garden to clear up the autumn leaves and start tidying up for spring. So nice to be out in the sun.

    Next month, I’ve been invited to visit Guam, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I’m now starting to get quite excited about it. A week on a island paradise sounds very nice at this time of year, but even better, I’m getting a couple of days in Tokyo on the way home.

    I’ve wanted to visit Japan since I was about nine years old and did a geography project on the country. I wrote to the Japanese Embassy and they not only sent me the usual tourist stuff, but also a large folder of the most beautiful photographs of landscapes and cityscapes. I’ve always harboured a desire to go see myself, but have always thought it a pipe dream. This week I booked my hotel worked out the Metro routes from the airport and also booked a day trip to Mount Fuji returning on the Bullet Train. What is even better, the day I arrive is the average date for the start of Blossom Time.

    I have a half finished collection of lullabies that I began work on nearly ten years ago, which seems to have ground to a halt. One of them is about blossom time in Japan. It needs anbother verse. Maybe this is what I need to kick start the project again.

    Cherry blossom petals falling through the night.
    Orchards fill with drifting clouds of pink and white.
    The moon above is shining bright,
    Floating like a paper kite,
    Silver shines the night.

    Melting snow, as water, falls down the mountainside –
    Flows into the lake below, where Earth and sky divide.
    Mirror-like, reflect the sky,
    A million diamonds shine on high,
    Silver shines the night.

  • Justin and Michael
    Justin and Michael
    >I spent the day in London, yesterday, nad had a wonderful time drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I’ve got this idea, you see, and needed to to a bit of research. Who knows where it will go?

    In the evening I went to the Ultimate Book Guide launch party,at the Groaucho Club in Soho. From out of nowhere came not a warm day but not a cold day. Soho was bustling fold out on the streets as though it was the first day of Spring.

    There were many old faces at the party including the Vampirate, Justin Somper, and Michael Thorn, who runs Achuka.co.uk and is usually on the other end of the camera at publisher’s dos. I’ve not worked for A&C Black since the Jets days, so it was lovely to meet up again

    Go to the Achuka Blog to see Michael’s end of the photo shoot!

  • This time last week I was in Singapore, visiting the Tanglin Trust School – an enormous British school run on the National Curriculum. There are about 720 children in the Infants and 760 in the Juniors. They are building up the Senior School which has about 800 pupils now. That’s a big school!

    I sometimes complain about the paranoid security to be found in some British schools these days, but I’ve not come across armed guards before! My taxi drivers, in the mornings, had to open their boots for bomb inspections while all the time being watched by the unflinching Gurkha Guards cradling machine guns close to their chests. ‘m not sure what message it sends to the children – I’m sure I would have been thrilled as a child!

    Barb and Ben
    Barb and Ben

    I was looked after by Barb and Ben, both Australian and both Teacher Librarians – a qualification that does not exist in the UK. They each have their own Library, Barb the Juniors’ and Ben the Infants’. Both Libraries are enormous and wonderfully stocked with acres of shelves, all groaning with an amazing collection of children’s books. Most small cities would be proud to have such facilities!
    Tanglin Infants Library
    Tanglin Infants Library

    The whole week seems like a bit of a dream now. I hardly slept on the plane over, so got myself horribly jet-lagged. I also picked up a cold or re-invigorated the one I’d just got over, so I felt quite disorientated for most of my stay. By the time I got home, I was sneezing and coughing like mad. I think the air conditioning in the hotel and airplane didn’t help.
    Doctor Whwo
    Doctor Who Water

    I became a bit obsessive about hydration. The hotel provided two bottles of complimentary water a day. This was the remarkable Doctor Who Brand. It didn’t taste different nor was it fizzy, as I had expected it to be. It turns out that is has ozone blown through it to act as some sort of bactericide to make it extra safe to drink. It sounds as if it ought to give you extra oxygen while you drink it.

    It was the end of Chinese Lunar New Year, and the festivities were still in full swing. A walk down Orchard Road, the Oxford Street of Singapore, was constantly punctuated by the sound of drumming as a Lion Dance brought peace and prosperity to the doors of shops and businesses. These were very entertaining but extremely loud in marble clad shopping malls. The shoppers all hurried past with their fingers in their ears.
    liondance
    On my last day at the school the Lions came visiting. I didn’t get down to see close up but had a bit of a view from the balcony by the Junior Library. As you can see, the children are wearing sun caps. Singapore is right on the equator, so it was hot and humid, but I don’t remember seeing the sun. It was hazy and overcast and rained a bit.

    I did lots of creative session with years two and three and came up with the germ of two ideas which might be worth working on. The children were great. Their parents are world travellers, and each class had a mix of nationalities, mostly Commonwealth, but I found a few Norwegians and Danes to help me out with Viking stories! orchidsI manged to keep myself awake on Thursday afternoon, by visiting the extensive Botanic Gardens, a haven of peace and tranquility, punctuated by wedding photo sessions – the photos are not taken on the day of the wedding but posed in the best places – and Tai Chi practitioners weaving their slow dances in the shadows of the banyan trees. The orchid collection went on for ever. I’ve never seen so many types or seen them growing so profusely. they had even got an orchid on display named after Margaret Thatcher.

    As I said before, a very disorientating week, but I’m sure it will come back to me as I recover from this blessed cold. I’m off to the Pacific Island paradise of Guam next month, as the guest of the Guam International Literacy Association. I’ve started reading up on jet-lag to see what I can do to prevent it happening quite as badly again.