Oxford

Had a wonderful time in Oxford with the Oxford Children's Book Group, giving a talk on Historical Fiction, with Linda Newbery, Adele Geras, and Marie-Louise Jensen: in case you're ever wondering, I'm told (by Adele herself) that Geras rhymes with terrace. And on the same subject, (Phillip) Ardagh rhymes with harder. Sedgwick rhymes only with hedgepig, and even then, not that well...

It was an interesting morning, if only because I learnt that I am a historical author, which was news to me, but I guess true. Mostly I feel like a hysterical author, ha ha.

In Brussels

The title is in ho,qge to the superb fil,; In Bruges. q classic of the future; no+

I q, noa ariting this blog on q belgiqn keyboqrd in q tozn zhere they qctuqlly speqk Dutch, then Fle,ish; then French, qnd let ,e tell you thqt this is the crqwiest keyboqrd I hqve ever co,e qcross; I hqve decided to give up trying to find the correct letters qnd q, just going to type nor,qlly: pretty fun, no+

thqtùs enough; i:ll hqve to zrite ,ore zhen I get bqck to Blighty!!!

Bath and Ty Newydd

After a spiffing time in Bath, where I did an event with Meg Rosoff, who I can now officially say is superb! Tanks to john McClay for organising it all. I ten made my way to the Lleyn peninsula, to the Ty Newydd creative writing course, run by Celia Rees and Mary Hoffman, where I had q greqt time, whilst giving a talk on the spot where Lloyd George died...

This is the beautiful house: my thanks to Sally and Awen for inviting me...

Technology

Well I was going to be good and keep up to date with my mini tour, but sadly technology has let me down, and I haven't been able to post from my phone as I hoped!
But now I've got a bit of free time, so here goes...