Summer Holiday

The Summer Holiday's have finally arrived - though you might find it hard to believe it's summer with all the rain we've been having.
Last weekend Blackpool had its annual air show... it s was wet and cloudy for most of the time so we didn't go on to the sea front to watch the show, however, we live close enough to he sea to have the aeroplanes flying close by over the house.As the day went on the sun did come out for a while and I took this picture of the Red Arrows as they screamed past the house and over the trees at the bottom of the garden.

Beacon Fell

Yesterday I spent a little bit of time catching up on some paperwork and other jobs at home then we all went for a walk round Beacon Fell - a Fell not far from the Forrest of Bowland.

It's a place I have been going to since I was little and is now a place where we often go as a family. It's not far from home and it's nice to just get out and walk among the trees and get some fresh air.

The fell has lots of little pathways that criss-cross through the woods and sometimes you even see Roe Deer disappearing into the trees. We didn't see any last night but we did see the wood sculptures that can be found dotted around the fell - like this snake...

here you can see a bat, hanging from the trees.

and a seat that could give you a bit of a bite.

Charney Manor

Last week I drove down to Oxford and met up with a lot of other children's authors at an old Manor House for a few days. We spent the time talking about writing, discussing problems, ideas and having lots of fun.A lot of Oxfordshire was flooded but luckily we managed to stay dry.I took my laptop computer with me even found time to do a bit of work...

Here you can see may laptop set up on a very old desk. I had a nice view of the gardens through the old windows and managed to get quite a bit of writing done... though it was a little bit strange being in such an old building whist writing about robots and spaceships.

Poetry in Burnley

On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings of this week I was at the wonderful Burnley Youth Theatre doing some poetry workshops with small groups of year 6 and 7 writers from schools in the East Lancashire area.

It’s always good fun doing poetry workshops and always amazing to see some of the great ideas that people have.The Youth Theatre in a lovely new building, surrounded by trees, close to a big park in Burnley.

The sessions were organised by Mid Pennine Arts as an end to a big Reading Is Fundamental event that had been going on for a few weeks in the local schools. It was great to have been invited along to take part – especially as I got to meet so many great young writers, and other artists including the poet John Siddique. While we were both doing poetry workshops, the other artists were doing Music, Drama and Art workshops… all with a book theme.Everyone that attended the workshops went home with two books - one of which was a collection of stories and poems that had been written by local children...

Genesis Concert

Last night we (my wife Lorraine, my brother Craig, and I) went to Old Trafford Football ground - the home of Manchester United - to see Genesis... a rock group from the 70's 80's and 90's that have got back together to do some concerts.

It was big, loud and great fun. It was good to hear some of their older songs mixed in with the more recent ones (though I suppose even they are getting a bit are old now). You will probably have heard Phil Collins, their lead singer, singing some of the songs in Walt Disney's film Tarzan.
Today I'm doing a bit of writing an then this afternoon we're going out for a walk somewhere to make the most of the nice weather.

Late Night Visitor

Now that summer is here - despite the rain - our cats have started to spend more of their time outside, so we often put a bowl of food outside for them.

One night when we were sitting outside we noticed a litle visitor to the garden. He wandered round from the graden next door and started eating the cat food. The cats didn't seem to mind though - they just sat and watched.

A few years ago we had quite a few hedgehogs visiting the garden. But this year there only seems to be two.