From the Valleys to the Lakes.

Last week it was the Rhymney Valley in Wales - 3 days in Oakdale School with possibly the nicest bunch of Y9 and Y10 students I’ve come across in … well goodness knows how many school visits! And it rained. Boy did it rain. Cats and dogs doesn’t begin to do the weather justice. You know how sometimes when it rains it feels almost as if the clouds are spilling drops by accident, and sometimes it feels as if the weather doesn’t quite know what to do, so it rains as a sort of default setting? Well this wasn’t like either of these. This was deliberate, malicious: the I’m going to throw everything I’ve got at you sort of rain. Horrid! Fortunately the weather didn’t dampen the spirits of my students for the three days and I had a great time.

This week I’ve started in Workington, Cumbria - at the top of the Lake District. Guess what? It was raining. Boring, drizzly rain - all grey and depressing. Once again, though, the young people from the five schools involved in the Roald Dahl day celebratory event were bright and cheerful. My thanks to them for behaving so well throughout the day.

As I pointed out to the young people, I feel a certain affinity with Roald Dahl. We were both RAF pilots. We both bent aeroplanes during our careers. We have both written books. He still sells a lot more than me, despite no longer being around to promote them. (Note to self: must do something about that … not trying to bring him back to life, of course! But selling more books, I mean!!) One day maybe I’ll catch him up, but I’ve got a long way to go if I’m ever going to do that.

Tomorrow it’s Staffordshire, and then onwards up to Nottinghamshire at the end of the week. All good fun!