tales and torches

Once more, for those in or near West Yorkshire this weekend, I'm Spinning Stories at Hebden Bridge Library on Sunday afternoon, 1 July, 3.00 - 3.45 for small people, 4.00 - 5.00 for everyone else, free for children £2.00 for adults.  For more about the Festival and the Fringe, try hebdenfringe@wordpress.com, which includes my entry on their blog, and/or google Hebden Bridge Arts Festival, which is going ahead despite last week's flooding.  It takes more than a bit of water to stop them.

And then there's Cockburn School in Leeds on Wednesday.  Watch this space.

I told you about the remarkable Chris Green, who carried the Olympic torch through Halifax the day after sorting out the flooding at his office.  Today he came to our after school club to talk to the children and,

yes, he wore the white tracksuit

yes, he brought the torch

yes, I got to hold it!  We all did!

There are in fact about 8000 Olympic torches, so every torchbearer has the option of keeping the one they carried.  (Though they have to pay for them, and the torches are de-activated so they can't set fire to anyone.)   Chris talked to the children about the Olympic ideals, which are

respect
excellence
friendship,

and we all repeated those words as we passed it around the circle.  Great words for children to hear and aspire to, and for adults, too, come to that.

And now, in case you're racking your brains, when Helen sent me that new definition of 'mantelpiece', she told me, 'it's what you write'.