• Well, I went to West Bromwich yesterday, and was careful not to have any milk in my tea and drank lots of water. I had orange juice on my Crunchy Nut cornflakes, much to my dear son’s disgust. It’s something my Mother-in-law used to do when she became diabetic. I’m not sure that the honey coating went well with the orange. I’ll try something a bit blander next time.

    I have to say that today my throat and chest don’t feel nearly as bad as they normally do. Maybe there is something in this no-dairy thing. It’s very hard to go completely non-dairy with out upsetting the diets of those you live with, but my daughter has joined me in the experiment as she has a singing exam next week and thinks that it may help her. Getting used to black tea and coffee quite quickly and experimenting with lemon and honey in my tea. I think there may be all sorts of exciting teas to try… maybe jasmine next.

    There were over two hundred children in the audience at West Bromwich Town Hall yesterday. One young girl came up to me with a white cardboard box that contained various bits of technology. She pulled her hearing aids out of her ears and attached radio receivers to the bottom of each, then she gave me the radio microphone to wear. This was such a neat unit. I could hide the wire under my jumper so that you wouldn’t know I was wearing it. Usually these devices are quite clunky things you wear round your neck.

    We checked it worked and the girl went and sat down with her friends. After a short conversation with Diane, the librarian who had organised the event, I spoke quietly into the microphone. “Can you hear me?” I asked. The girl turned round and nodded. “You can hear all my secret conversations, can’t you?” I said. “She beamed a huge toothless smile. I carried on talking to her across the room. Then I noticed the nearest children were watching me, apparently talking to myself. I told the girl that they thought I was mad talking to myself. She thought it was very funny.

    I’ve often worn these devices and always feel there is an invisible cord connecting me to the child on the other end. Perhaps because they are so focussed on my voice they feel I’m talking to them personally and that feeds back to me. Of the hundreds of thousands of children I must have read stories to, many of the one’s with the radio mikes are the ones that I remember.

  • I have been reading all sorts of stuff on the internet this morning, in search of ways to make school visits less tiring. It all seems to come down to dairy products. Talk about agendas! One camp are anti-dairy. They are generally vegetarians and come with lots of new-age baggage and then there are the pro-dairy guys. Strangely, if you dig through the pro sites they seem to be sponsored by dairy concerns!

    I don’t want to go into the minutiae of phlegm and pus cell counts in milk, but I’m going to give up dairy for a week and see if it has any effect. Everything I read about voice control and public speaking suggests that mucus build up is a big problem. Disgusting isn’t it? I will enjoy keeping the world updated with my experiment. Pass the carrot juice!

  • studiositeWell, people do read my blog! I heard from the author and illustrator, Ted Dewan, this morning. He famously works in Philip Pullman’s old shed. What vibes are stored in those walls?

    I thought I would bring things up to date on the project. I’ve cleared the site and dug the footings. I’ve ordered the materials to make the concrete pad that the “shed/studio” is going to sit on and I’ve got my eye on a door on eBay! The basic design is sorted but will adapt around the door that I eventually get. The photo shows the site, which is a bit tired from winter at the moment. In the foreground are timbers I’ve been looking after for nearly four years now, with just this project in mind. I might be in for the summer!

    My Mum told my Norwegian Aunt, Tante Nilla, about this project. She said it’s only right as both Greig and Ibsen both worked in garden sheds (or hutte as the Norwegians call them). Roal Dahl famously worked in a garden shed, but then he was Norwegian too. There must be some sort of macho Viking thing about working in sheds.