My tiny Penzance bedroom – more like a ship’s cabin than a B&B room – overlooked the sea. The sea lured me out every morning despite the wet, grey weather, and I was fortified by a delicious breakfast. Everything is homemade, and my breakfast plate was decorated with sprigs of edible flowers from the garden outside. Walking to nearby Newlyn takes about ten or fifteen minutes along the seafront, accompanied by the rhythmic breath of the sea, the little town of Mousehole in the distance. I passed a Newlyn window with an Alfred in it.
Newlyn is a busy fishing harbour, with around a hundred fishermen spending several days at a time offshore. I met and chatted briefly with one of them who’d been out at sea for five days. It’s my life, he told me.
As well as the fishing harbour there’s a small cinema and the Newlyn Art Gallery, which has a little cafe – always a plus in wet weather. Its last exhibition, ‘Social Fabric’ was just finishing. I was intrigued by this work by Celia Pym, a jacket belonging to film star Vivian Leigh given to Pym by film director James Ivory, who’d stored it since 1965.
There was a table in the gallery spread with pins, scissors, cloth fragments and coloured thread. No one else was around. I spent a short but happy time assembling a picture. Thank you Newlyn.
After a damp few days eventually the sun came out and I walked through Penzance to 
Gulval lies on St Michael’s Way, an 
I’d used the wet weather to explore by bus, taking one 
I took a photo of his ‘Blue Ships’ tea towel on Alfred’s old windowsill, then asked a stranger to hold it up so I could photograph it. We got into conversation. ‘Of course you have to be a bit mad to be an artist,’ said the young stranger.
More than one hundred years ago this house in Bloomsbury, London became home to all things related to the 18th century polymath, including, amongst other things, his walking stick, a tiny piece of 
But what did the house signify to its
Islands are like magnets to me. Some I’ve visited because I was 
Last week showing solidarity with other authors outside Meta’s HQ in Kings Cross.
A week or so ago I was sent a copy of this photo of me with an older sister (top right) and two cousins. It was taken in my Nottingham grandmother’s garden I think. She also had a large dressing up box in her ‘haunted’ attic. A tiny and sickly child, I was sent briefly to stay with my aunt and uncle in Skegness for a few days. I was in heaven as my cousins, seen here, had copies of just about every Dandy and Beano annual. I was later mortified during that visit by my falling into Skegness boating lake and being rescued by my boy cousin (here wearing a blonde wig). He then carried me, dripping wet, back home on his shoulders. What a hero! I found his father, my large uncle, rather terrifying. In charge of Skegness lifeboat and a keen birdwatcher, he blew on a hunting horn before his dinner. In a good natured way, my aunt assured me.
This is 
Last week I visited an 
Then, volunteers from the audience pulled faces showing different moods. Children drew them as characters and gave them a voice. No actual cats involved.
Just a small sample of the wonderful drawings made that morning by a group of fifty or so. Early the next day a box of flowers was delivered with this card – how lovely!
There were two types of soup at the tennis club cafe – lime green and bright orange. They tasted the same. The occasional sound of laughter and lovely plocking of tennis balls outside made up for the dreadful soup. I wondered about the identity of the owners of the two racquets on the wall.
Yesterday experienced a bit of nostalgia … for when the world wasn’t quite so bonkers, and when you could actually go and visit a publisher with an idea and some pictures after talking to them on the phone. The publisher said come round but you must demonstrate how at least two of these tricks work. My list included Tangle Torture, Stuck to the Floor and Unexpected Goose. I did the demo but one of the tricks went badly wrong (the publisher was … briefly incapacitated), so I expected the worst.