Walking The Wall

I have just walked Hadrians Wall!! Hadrian was a roman emperor who built this massive wall that is 84 miles long across the country. It was to keep people out of England. It is about 2000 years old. Most of the wall has gone now but you can still see bits of it, it used to be 15 feet high and 10 feet thick!! It was great to walk it. It took me and my old mate Andy, 6 days to walk the full length of it. It only rained on one day so that was OK!! Here are some of the stuff we saw on the way... a tank driving on the road, loads of ruins, a lost man from Poland, Carlisle, millions of angry looking cows and one bull!! Now it is the last day of August which means that the summer jollys are about done and dusted so its time to put my walking boots away and get back into schools. Today and tomorrow i am in Rotherham libraries doing some writing workshops with teenagers. Its all walking and walls and writing and workshops innit!!!!

Sitting in the sun

I have just finished a book about the old blokes who put together the first proper English Dictionary. it was all a bit mind boggling. It was a book about murder, madness and the English language!!! Blimey O Riley what a story!! This bloke who used to be a Doctor in the USA went a bit doolally and shot a bloke cos he thought he was going to attack him - he wasn't - and he got sent to a hospital for poorly people. Then this other bloke, this really clever bloke had the job of putting together teh dictionary and asked for people to help him...well.. this mad bloke wrote to him and helped him loads. In fact he went on to be one of the most important people behind the dictionary. He was called Dr W. C Minor and the other brainy bloke was called DR James Murray. It was a brilliant book. You wouldn't think that a book about another book could be so interesting but it was. It made me think about books and the people who write them and about all the work that goes into it!! You gotta treat books with respect people!!!