Horsforth…and Idleness?

It was a nippy morning, temperature of 2.5C, as we pulled up outside Horsforth St Mary’s PS on the outskirts of Leeds. Brrr. But inside all was bright and beautiful – the author bloke and I were greeted with singing. Okay, admittedly it wasn’t our praises the pupils were singing, for the songs were hymns. Still, I was impressed by such clear voices first thing in the morning. Keith does his warming up in the car where no-one can hear him (fortunately), whereas I suspect these voices had been warmed up in the playground.

Someone from Year 4 wanted to find out if the Moon was made of Moon Cheese, so we climbed aboard the good ship Cardboard Cut-out and blasted off. However, before we were able to discover the answer we were being chased across the Moon by…oh, yeah, I’m not supposed to say in case it spoils the book for those who haven’t read it yet.

No teachers won prizes here, but 4 happy pupils did. If you’re one of them, I hope you are enjoying/ do enjoy/ will enjoy (delete as appropriate) your book. I’m sure you will. And henceforth you’ll be able to read nothing but Lee novels…or you will if I hurry up and write the next one.

Onwards to…idle for the afternoon.

No, not sticking our feet up and lounging around. When have we ever done that? Our Lady and St
Brendan’s PS is in part of Bradford called Idle. The school is on a hill. A steep hill. We felt sorry for the lady pushing a pram up it, as if we should have offered her a tow. I’ll bet the pupils there are really fit from all that upping and downing.

Lots of those probably-very-fit pupils crammed into Ms Cartwright’s room. We knew it was her room because she had her name emblazoned across the door in carved letters. Quite large letters. If her name was any longer she’d need a wider door.

The author bloke tends to speak to lots of pupils at once, so I like it when once in a while we get to
cram in to a room. It turns classrooms into little comedy clubs, which is the best possible use for a classroom.

The result was that we had a great laugh, after which Keith signed lots of books. And then we headed
west. A long way west…to Conwy in North Wales. It was dark and freezing by the time we arrived but we were already looking forward to the next day: World Book Day, 3 March.