What a week that was!

Out of Time display at Cartmel Priory School

Phew! Exhausting week- busy at schools and other interesting places! First up was Cartmel Priory School...my first author day with secondary children. It was a great day-fantastic variety of writers and some excellent moments including the one when Year 8 demanded I read Guy the Grumpy Gargoyle to them ...and bless them, they even joined in with the actions and noises! Just shows you don't always need to have a computer game to interact with a story! Thanks so much to Carol for all the organisation and friendly welcome.
Tuesday...a bit of normality, in the centre and catching up. Wednesday-train up to Edinburgh to the University for my daughter to have an interview. We both loved it and were amazed how easy and quick the journey was. Thursday-full day at Dane Ghyll Primary with all year groups! Wow! Got quite confused at one point-completely forgetting what a metaphor was! I DO know what one is -honest!My brains were scrambled and that's my story and I'm sticking to it! Fab day -made to feel very welcome by Gary and the staff and thanks to Caren who organised it all. Finally, today up to Broughton CE School. A lovely day, brilliant staff, super children and thanks to Jacki for inviting me. Worked with Y2-6 and we had some excellent stories and the icing on the cake was the Poetry Competition which I helped to judge! What a hard task-the kids put so much effort in and learnt their poems well...pics to follow later!

Judging at Broughton

Tonight I have booked my flights to Venice as I will be visiting a school there in my author role. I am excited and apprehensive at the same time...but looking forward to spending time with my cousins John and Lidia who are kindly putting me up...or should I say putting up with me? More training walks planned for the weekend...K2B not far off now-don't forget you can sponsor me on the link here-for an excellent cause-dystonia!

Which way?

Phew! Busy old week so far! Made some lovely friends on Saturday at Blackpool Waterstones and even sold some copies of Out of Time. Sunday-a glorious day for walking...and walk we did! 12.2 miles across field and dale-and muddy puddles good training for Keswick to Barrow walk dystonia teams(please see link to sponsor page-every pound helps). http://www.keswick2barrow.co.uk/sponsor/welcome.asp?ID=60
Been busy ringing schools and book stores to promote wider and wider. So far got another signing in Preston at Waterstones. If you know any schools etc who wish to avail themselves of my services please get in touch. Its very hard all this promotion-and as I've said previously not my natural environment-I am getting better, but I am not keen. Don't mind the social networking etc but its hard to cold call shops and schools.
Got a number of school visits coming up-Lindale Primary for a second day with the younger children this time too. Then Cartmel Priory School, Thwaites School near Millom,Dane Gyhll in Barrow,and Walney Secondary School during World Book Week. The piece de resistance is  Waterstones Barrow on World Book Day-a dress up day....hmmm! ot telling-you will have to come and see me!


I'm excited about the promotional film I am going to be doing with Comely Media soon-take a look at their website-good work! The two main parts are sorted and I can see it will be brilliant! Hopefully getting it on Youtube will bring the book to a wider audience.


Still awaiting Guy the Grumpy Gargoyle's arrival-it is just like a pregnancy! He is due 1st August...4 days before my lovely grandson's 3rd birthday. It will be a special birthday present because I have dedicated it to him and to the children of Dalton S Mary's School-who were responsible for its creation.


We are holding a "friends" of Furness Abbey meeting on 22nd March at the Red Lion pub at 7-30pm. We want to see if we can help to support EH in promoting and expanding visitor numbers. We should take a leaf out of David Gill's book at Dalton Zoo-he seems to know what its all about! If you are interested in joining us feel free..we would love to see you.


Work tomorrow-with my lovely TA students. We are progressing well with the new course and hope to be able to run some new ones very soon via Cumbria Adult Learning.