Tuesday April 1st 2025

Dear Diary,

I was back at Whiteshill Primary today, after first visiting last June. Sadly, the hill was just as steep as I remembered… meaning my heavily loaded author trolley determined the ridiculously fast speed of my descent! But fortunately, there were some lovely parents congregated by the school entrance, who rushed to my aid and helped me lug my trolley back up the hill and safely into the school grounds. During my assembly, I quickly discovered that everyone (apart from the Reception pupils who hadn’t met me before) remembered me!!! And we had quite a giggle when some of the pupils revealed that they’d fight a dragon off with their bare hands, their bare feet, or a frying pan!

My first workshop was for Years 1 & 2. We only had thirty minutes for this session, but there was some super work produced. And certificates were handed out to Ilia, Ozzy, Remi, Rowan, Rupert, Gabriel, Lily, Walter, Sonny, Florence, Charlie & Erin.

Next, it was a longer session for Years 5 & 6. Again, certificates went flying out during this session:

But I particularly liked Louis W and William’s story entitled Dragon Farts vs Zombie Farts:

And Jack and George’s story under the same title:

Julian remembered having to create book cover designs last year. And luckily, I had some of those worksheets with me again, as he had a great idea for a future book in the Words of WARNING collection:

After lunch, it was time for the final workshop of the day, for Years 3 & 4. Toby really impressed me with how keen he was to expand his vocabulary, coming up to me every few minutes to ask the spelling of a new word he wanted to use in his story. He also asked his teacher if he could take home the free copy of WARNING: May Contain Dragons that I’d donated to the school, to be the first to read it! How lovely!!! With more incredible written work and artwork produced by these pupils, my certificate stash continued to deplete fast during this session:

And I especially loved Tilda’s story about a teacher who was a dragon:

After a super day, things went downhill fast at home time (before I made my slow climb back up the hill to my car), as I was faced with technological problems and a card reader that wouldn’t work! But thanks to the heroic headteacher, Miss Francis – who swooped to the rescue – a backup plan was quickly executed, meaning parents and pupils were able to purchase copies of the book to take home after all. Phew!!! But during all the craziness, I didn’t get a chance to properly thank Penelope and Taia (maybe Taja) for the lovely stories they presented me with at the end of the day. Thank you both. I’ve read them now and thought they were fantastic.