UK & Ireland Domination Tour Part 3

It’s been a great couple of days. Yesterday I did a couple of school visits around Huddersfield (remember, it’s pronounced Oodersfield). This area is full of old mill towns, and really very beautiful. The school visits went well; not much different from Canadian school visits, except that they marveled at my odd accent.  I was escorted around both by Sarah, the wonderful publicist at Andersen, and Nicola from The Children’s Bookshop in Lindley. Oh, how I love independent booksellers, and Nicola was no exception – full of enthusiasm and love for what she does. Her shop is absolutely wonderful, too.

With wonderful Nicola

I signed stock in their store. And best of all, I saw another Canadian author’s book sitting face-out on a shelf in the shop: Mahtab Narsimhan‘s “Tiffin.” The area around Huddersfield is quite stunning and I went for another long walk after my day of activities.

My hotel

That sheep was giving me the stink-eye.

But a true added bonus to my day was that my buddy Ross King – whom I met at the GG’s in 2012 when he won for best non-fiction for “Leonardo and the Last Supper” (yes that was me dropping “GG’s” into my post) – happened to be in the area (Ilkley) with his amazing and talented wife Melanie King (who is also an author, most recently of “Tea, Coffee and Chocolate”). They live in Woodstock, near London, and they were in the area promoting Ross’s new book. So they spent the night at the same hotel, and we had a long, boozy dinner together. This morning Nicola picked Sarah and me up for one more school visit, at a school called Moors End. It was a great visit, wonderful kids, and a nice finish to my time in Huddersfield. Then Sarah and I hopped in a car and were driven an hour and a half to Lytham St. Anne’s, in Lancashire. It’s so different from Yorkshire, even though it’s not that far away. It’s a seaside resort town, and also absolutely beautiful. I went for a two hour walk, during which I tried to walk out to the water, but the tide was so far out I never quite made it – it was like an optical illusion, I kept thinking I was almost there when I clearly wasn’t!

My hotel (!!)

Just had a wonderful dinner with Sarah, which would have been really healthy if we hadn’t both blown it by ordering fabulous “puddings…” (mine was literally a pudding, rice pudding). But to hell with it, it’s kind of sort of a holiday, right?

More school visits and an evening bookshop event tomorrow in St. Anne’s. I will leave you with a couple of brilliant and to the point signs that I saw in a Huddersfield loo.