Have you ever met a friend for the first time in months and felt that you had so much to tell them that it’s going to take you about six months? That’s me! Read the rest of this diary and I’ll tell you what I’m doing with these soldiers and whether I’ve just been arrested …
Now where was I? Oh yes, I was with a platoon of soldiers from a Devon re-enactment society at the Appledore Book Festival. Yes, once again the Appledore Book Festival hasn’t exceeded all expectations – it chucked away the expectations and soared into space. Everyone loved it – the 4,000+ visitors, the 60+ authors, the loads of publishers, the crowds of seagulls – even I loved it and I was busy having a nervous breakdown! By the way, if you don’t know what I’m talking about you need to gently smack your wrist and read the rest of these diaries. Then you’d know that I have somehow found myself Director of this book festival in deepest Devon.
Here’s me and a bearded giant who doesn’t eat children – he actually writes brilliant books for them instead and he’s called Philip Ardagh – author of Unlikely Exploits and the Eddie Dickens books. Philip opened the Festival this year – so you could say that a giant-sized talent took it to new ahem, heights …
Besides being Director, my contribution to the Festival was to give a talk on my discovery of the battlefield of Cynuit (say Kin-u-it). This is the place where wicked Jarl Ubbi met his evil end and NO, I’m not making all this up. I spent a year of my life looking for the site of this battle that stopped England being conquered by the Vikings. It’s been lost for 1,000 years but in the end I found it and I got on the TV and in all the papers. Here’s what Ubbi didn’t look like …
And now to change the subject without warning - a big word of thanks – I mean “THANKS!” to the Cambridge Science Festival for organising my Xmas Xtravaganza – The Horrible Science of Cambridge and all you hundreds of happy Horrible Science fans who turned up for it.
So what’s the new year got in store? Well, you can see what I’m up to in my diary – but right now it’s raining and cold and dark and about as miserable as a Monday morning can be so I’m not going a million miles from my bed. When it stops raining maybe I’ll go walking or running or cycling – so I’ll finish off with a nice picture of me out and about. Wrap up warm now!
