Big City

On Monday, off I went to London for a publisher's party. They know how to party at Puffin, and if you google 'The Banqueting House, London', you'll see where we were. A very grand venue with a ceiling painted by Rubens. When Charles I was led out to the scaffold, did he glance up and think, 'Rubens did a good job with that'?

I met Julia Donaldson, the new Children's Laureate, who writes everything in the most natural and entertaining rhymes. She is charming and friendly, and so easy to get on with. I was able to thank Jeremy Strong for making children laugh, Andy Stanton for getting my godson reading, and the lovely Julia Golding for endorsing HIGH CRAG LINN. I grovelled before Shirley Hughes, who took a kind interest in how LYS was doing - I told her how much he loved DOGGER. If you haven't read it, you've missed it.

The next morning was coffee and macaroons at a publisher's office (it's tough in the big city) and a free afternoon to enjoy the museums. When the rain was, as they say in Northumberland 'stotting' down at Wimbledon I was in the underground and didn't know a thing about it. The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous, but it missed me, so what am I?