This is where I went...

16:10

Just arrived at the hotel after a rather gruelling three-hour drive. Luckily, what otherwise would have been a boring journey was enlivened by a large number of fascinating road works, all of which were helpfully signposted well in advance, giving us drivers plenty of time to slow way, way down in order to better admire the wonderful craftsmanship involved. Sometimes, just for fun, the warning signs were present without the accompanying road works.

Tomorrow is going to be pretty busy, as I've got four library visits. That's a lot for one day, and I very much fear that by the time I'm done I'll be sleep-talking (a bit like sleep-walking, only probably a lot funnier for the audience).

The hotel seems pretty posh. Not quite as posh as the one in which I stayed on my last Galway trip, but definitely posher than some of the decrepit holes in which I've had the misfortune to stay over the years. My room is right at the front, just above the main entrance, so I'm blessed with the delightful and charming - and, I suspect, continuous - sound of the traffic on the main road.

Off out now in search of sustenance and the Galway central library. I don't actually need to get to be at the library until 13:45 tomorrow afternoon, but the first time I was here - last October - I arrived in the city an hour before the session was due to start, and it took me that entire hour to find the library. Even though I had a map. And even though, as it turned out, I was parked right next door. I suspect it's like one of those Mysterious Little Shops full of Rare and Unusual Artefacts, the kind frequently featured in old stories that end with, "But, though I scoured the city for years, I was never able to find that shop again. Some say that it only appears at certain times, when one is in dire need..." and so on.

18:30

I'm back in the hotel. That probably won't come as a shock, given that this is where the laptop is. I've got a mouse for the laptop now, which makes things a lot easier. I'll never get the hang of that little touch-pad thingy.

The noise from the street that I'd been so worried about seems to be effectively masked by the bunch of guys on ladders painting the front of the hotel, so no problems there.

I found the library after a mere half-an-hour's searching. Now that I know exactly where it is, I can't quite understand why it was so hard to track down. All I have to do it turn left at the hotel's main door, walk to the end of the road, cross two more roads (still going in a straight line) then turn left. Simple!

That said, I did sort of get lost a little bit after I left the library and tried to find SubCity (the comic shop). Even though I knew where I was and where the shop was, somehow it was still hard to get there. Maybe there's something magical about Galway... Or maybe - just maybe - long ago the city's planners feared alien invasion and secretly installed modular streets that can be moved about like giant pieces of Lego. I can picture the aliens now, wandering around going, "I'm SURE it was down this way..." before eventually giving up and deciding to invade Tralee instead.

During my wandering I received a call from my friend Maura, who lives in Galway with her husband Martin. We've arranged to meet up tomorrow night for dinner. It should be a lot of fun; Maura and Martin are both incredibly bright and witty and always fun to be with.

22:00

Just got off the phone with Leonia. I've only been gone from home for nine hours and already I miss her like mad. She reports that Gul (our cat) seems a little upset that Daddy isn't in his usual spot propped up in front of the telly, but otherwise all is well.

A few minutes ago I was speaking with my good pal Michael Scott (author of The Alchemyst, a copy of which you should all have bought by now). He's just back from another lengthy trip to Los Angeles, where he was no doubt hob-nobbing with the stars again. Michael's currently putting the finishing touches to The Magician (the second book in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series). I've been lucky enough to read an early draft and I have to say it's one of the most inventive, exciting books I've read in a long time.

Right... Off to bed now. I'm being picked up at 9:30 tomorrow morning.

 

03:05 in the MORNING!

Remember last year when I was in Cork and I was woken at three in the morning by someone chatting on his mobile phone in the hotel corridor? Well, about fifteen minutes ago I was woken once again by loud nearby voices. At first I assumed that it was someone out on the road, but the voices weren't fading as the people passed by, the way one might reasonably expect. No, these voices were steady and constant. As I became more awake, I realised that they were coming from a nearby room. I concluded that the source of the voices was a couple of late-night returning guests, and that they'd settle down soon enough. So I gave them a few minutes. No settling of any kind took place. It was a constant stream of loud chatting, two men with deep voices and no sign of shutting up. They didn't sound drunk, which would have been an explanation if not an excuse.

So I got out of bed and peeked out through the little spy-hole thingy in the door, expecting to see a couple of guys in the corridor. There was no one out there, but I did spot that the door almost opposite mine was fully open. I got dressed and went out; sure enough Chatty and Loudy were in that room. I knocked politely on the door. Equally politely, they didn't hear me over their own voices. So I knocked again. Still nothing. From where I stood in the corridor I could see the legs of two guys lying on the bed, fully clothed as clearly they'd just returned from somewhere. I knocked a third time and said, "Hey! Lads, give it a rest. It's three o'clock in the morning and you're keeping everyone awake." One of the guys sat up and came into view; he stared at me and for a moment I thought he was going to take a run at me. Then he said, "What?" and I realised that, yes, he was drunk after all. I replied, "If you're not going to shut up, then at least keep the door closed. We can hear every word." He turned pale. "Every word?" This wasn't actually true; I hadn't been able to make out any individual words, just a steady stream of noise. "Oh yeah," I lied. "Every word."

I've no idea what those guys had been talking about, but immediately after I turned and left they closed the door. I can still just about hear faint muttering from their room. Perhaps it's merely my imagination, brought on by lack of sleep, but it sure sounds to me like they're supervillains plotting to take over the local chain of pizza shops. At the very least. Anyway, all is quiet now save for the quiet tapping of keys on a laptop keyboard. I wonder what kind of person could be so inconsiderate of the other guests that they'd sit up writing in the middle of the night. Oh. Wait... it's me, isn't it?

17:14

A pretty tough day... I was collected at the hotel by Bernie Kelly of the Central Library, who kindly drove me everywhere and made sure I was looked after. Our first stop was Oranmore library, where I was besieged by a rampaging mob of eleven- and twelve-year-old girls. Well, perhaps "rampaging mob" is a bit of a lie. And so is "besieged". They were in fact extremely well-behaved and polite, and they were sharp as tacks. They asked a lot of great questions and really kept me on my toes.

Next stop was Westside Library, which thankfully wasn't as difficult to get to this time around. The session had a mixture of girls and boys, and they were a lively bunch, great fun. There was about sixty of them, plus a handful of teachers, and one older gentleman whom I assumed was a headmaster (because he looked like a headmaster). Later, as I was talking to Bernie and Cora from Westside, we realised that we didn't know who this man was: he hung around the library after the session so clearly he wasn't with the school after all. So who was this interloper who got a free show? A spy from Darren Shan's camp, perhaps? A talent scout from some publisher? A plain-clothes library inspector? Perhaps we shall never know.

After a quick lunch at the Park Hotel, we went to the Galway Central library for the first of the afternoon sessions. My first question, as always, was, "Does anyone know who I am?" A bunch of hands were raised. Hardly a surprise in itself because, well, they were there to see me. But the next question really caught me out; I asked, "Has anyone ready any of my books?" Now, usually no hands are raised. Sometimes one or two, but most of the time there's nothing. But this time... About half of the boys raised their hands. It turned out that I met these guys last year in Westside library.

I honestly didn't know what to do... I'm so used to the kids not knowing anything about the books that my whole opening routine is based on telling them who I am and what the New Heroes series is about.

But after much "Do you remember me?" from the boys, we soldiered on, and I think that they enjoyed themselves.

The last session of the day was in Ballybane library. It was a tiny turn-out - only five people there. Well, six if you count the young girl who wasn't supposed to be there but sidled up and sat down to listen. Or seven if you count the teacher. Eight, actually, if you count the librarian. And there was me, too. So that makes... uh... nine.

I was grateful that there were so few, because by that stage I was exhausted. The kids seemed to enjoy the brief reading and we chatted a lot about the books and writing in general.

23:59

Just back from dinner with Maura and Martin. We had a great time. We went to a restaurant called Cactus Jack's and the staff very kindly didn't chuck us out even though we were there for hours. The conversations was wide-ranging, covering fascinating gossip about people we knew, as well as, of course, quantum physics, the intricacies of human nature and the exact level of extreme cuteness of Sara Ramirez.

Maura and Martin kindly walked me back to the hotel, then we sat in the lobby for about an hour, none of us wanting the night to end, but I since I have another long day tomorrow we called it a night and said our good-byes a few minutes ago.

 

08:33

Right. I'm showered, fed, dressed and more or less ready to go. Because I'm going home this evening, I've got to check out of the hotel in a few minutes. Bernie and I did discuss the idea of me leaving my car here, but that would mean I'd have to come all the way back into the city at the end of the day... Not a good thing since that'll be in the middle of rush hour and the traffic at that time is murder.

So instead I'm going to drive to Oranmore and Bernie will meet me there.

 

23:15

I'm home! Yay!

Bernie met me this morning in Oranmore, and our first stop was Gort, about seventeen miles south-east of Galway city as the fly crows (about twenty-four miles in the car). It's a nice little town and the library is just stunning. It's a converted church, so not only does it have lots of books it's also got great big stained-glass windows!

We arrived a little early so Bernie and I wandered through the church's graveyard where I discovered a disturbingly large number of headstones that bore the names of people I know. Hopefully that was just a coincidence.

The session went well, I thought. The kids seemed to enjoy it, but it was tough going trying to get the teacher to even crack a smile. I almost managed it once. But no one responded when I said, "Gort. Klaatu Barada Nikto." Perhaps they're too young to get the reference...

After that, we were off to Athenry, about sixteen miles north-north-east in a straight line (nineteen miles by car). The library is absolutely tiny - about the size of a very small library - but that made for a very cosy session.

At this point in the journey, Bernie handed me over to her colleague Maureen. After lunch, Maureen drove me to Tuam... Now, either I was exhausted and losing my grip on time (which is likely) or it's a very long drive. Hold on a second while I check it out on Google Earth... OK. It's about sixteen miles as the cry flows, but in the car it's only about a mile longer. Maybe we went a different route...

Of the seven Galway sessions, Tuam was by far the toughest. That's possibly because the kids were a little older (I think they were in first or second year), but it's more likely because I was really beginning to flake out. I kept forgetting what I was saying and a couple of times I was in the middle of an answer when I forgot the question.

But all too soon it was over, and Maureen drove me back to Oranmore (about twenty miles) where I collected my car and drove home. Now, that was a tough drive! So in total today I covered about 220 miles. The "I need fuel and I need it right now!" light came on in the car when I was just outside Maynooth, but I figured I could make it (and I did).

Sorry if all this is a bit rambly and not very funny. I'm kind of exhausted and it's all I can do to keep my fingers hitting the right keys.

 

16:11

Off to Waterford tomorrow morning. Three sessions, but they're all in the same place so it shouldn't be too tough. What's really going to be a pain are the Tuesday and Wednesday sessions in Wexford: I've got to drive from Waterford to Enniscorthy - by-passing New Ross - then go north-west to Bunclody, then south-east (back through Enniscorthy) and to the hotel in Wexford town. Then on Wednesday morning I'm off to New Ross, then back to Wexford for the afternoon session, before I head off for home (passing through Enniscorthy and Bunclody along the way, unless I decide to take the coast road which is likely to be absolutely horrible traffic-wise).

This means that between leaving Waterford and getting back home I'll have to cover about 205 miles. Now, if I'd been the one who arranged everything, I'd go Waterford, New Ross, Wexford, stay overnight, Enniscorthy, Bunclody, home. That'd be about 125 miles. Instead I have to drive an extra eighty miles back and forth across Wexford.

Anyway, I'm pretty much all set to go. The car has been refuelled, the laptop and phone have been charged, and this time I won't forget to bring my headphones so if I want to (and I've got the time) I can watch movies on the laptop. I've got to be in Waterford at ten tomorrow morning, and it's about a two-hour drive, so I'm going to leave at about six just in case. Better to get there lots early than even a few minutes late.

 

09:08

I left the house at 6:10 this morning, and bombed along the roads - sometimes rather slowly - towards Waterford until I got to about two miles outside the city, where, just like last year, everything ground to a halt.

This is because of the very heavy traffic attempting to cross the bridge into the city. I realised almost too late that I was in the wrong lane, but a kindly motorist allowed me to pull in ahead of him. And then a couple of minutes later I realised I had been in the correct lane all along, so I had to rather sheepishly switch back.

Luckily, I found the hotel very quickly. The nice girl at reception allowed me to use the hotel's car park even though check-in time isn't until 2pm. Then, when I was heading out back through reception, she asked me if I wanted to check in early. I've heard legends of such a thing happening, but I've never experienced it myself until now. So I write this in the comfort of my lovely hotel room - which has a great view of the river - instead of where I expected to be; wandering around Waterford waiting for the library to open.

So far, this is looking pretty good!

19:34

It was, as I'd predicted, a very good day indeed. Apart from the heavy rain and the heavier traffic: From that aspect, this city certainly seems to be living up to its name.

I reached the library shortly before ten, just as a whole bunch of boys and a couple of teachers arrived. We had to wait until exactly ten o'clock before the library opened, but luckily there's a big porchy-thing under which we were all able to shelter from the rain. The boys closest to the glass doors spent a good couple of minutes peering in and speculating on which of the librarians inside was Michael Carroll, little realising that I was standing right behind them.

It was a good session, though small compared to the later two: one of the classes called it off because of the weather. The boys had been reading The Quantum Prophecy in class, so I managed to get away without having to do a reading (I've now read Paragon's scenes from the prologue so many times that I can't tell anymore whether they're any good).

The second session had a full complement of fifth- and sixth-class boys. They too were a lively bunch but they seemed genuinely interested in the books and asked some great questions.

Then there was a break for lunch, during which I had a brief wander through the city and discovered a great second-hand bookstore that's absolutely packed with old annuals (ah, you youngsters today... You don't know what real Christmas is because most of the annuals these days are rubbish).

After lunch, the final session of the day was comprised of two classes of girls. By which I mean that there were two classrooms' worth, not, like, different social classes. They were very, very sharp and had a great time asking me well-considered questions like "What colour socks are you wearing?"

After it was all over, I made another trip to the second-hand bookstore and bought a few more goodies, then I found a comic shop in which I discovered the first (and only) two issues of Alan Moore's Big Numbers. They're in excellent condition and only cost a fiver each - I'm sure they're worth more than that.

Dinner tonight consisted of a large, round bread-like substance that had been sprinkled with fragments of a solidified dairy product and slices of vegetables. It's a local delicacy that I believe is called a "pizza". It was yummy. I watched a couple of episodes of The Adventures of Lano and Woodley while I ate... Man, those guys are funny!

The hotel room is nice and big, but it's a pretty cold day and the heating doesn't seem to be on. I decided that a nice shower would warm me up, but it didn't work. The pressure was great, the temperature wasn't. So I had a bath instead.

Anyway... It's now about 19:53. I've got to drive to Enniscorthy in the morning so I'm going to get an early night, get up at about six and leave the hotel as early as possible.

 

17:53

Man, it's been another tough day! Got up nice and early as planned, then drove the long way to Enniscorthy. I didn't plan to drive the long way, but managed to achieve that thanks to the nice gentlemen who put up "Diversion" signs in order to encourage us motorists to visit parts of the county that most people never get to see.

I arrived in Enniscorthy in plenty of time, which I spent trying to find the library. I knew that was going to be tricky. The library is on Lymington road, but a quick search last week on Google Maps showed up no such place. Nor did a longer search. Fact is, I tried everything I could think of to locate Lymington Road and in the end I concluded that it's a place that's completely immune to search engines. I even phoned the library last Friday, but the woman I was speaking to wasn't very familiar with the town and wasn't able to tell me exactly where the place was in relation to anywhere else (such as roads that I was able to find on the maps).

Anyway, I found the place after less than an hour's searching. Unfortunately, though the session was due to start at 10 am, the first school didn't arrive until after 10:15, and the second one arrived about ten minutes after them (the teacher told me that she'd had no idea about my visit until the librarian phoned to see where they were...) But despite that awkward start, the session went pretty well and the kids seemed to enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure that the same is true for the afternoon session in Bunclody. The kids were definitely very bright and sharp, but the first twenty minutes or so were really hard-going: they just didn't seem to be very interested. They perked up a little after I read from the prologue of The Quantum Prophecy, and by the end the hands were shooting up and lots of questions were asked (though, as is often the case, most of the questions came from the same two or three people).

Despite the last-minute surge, I found it all a bit frustrating. I'm used to events like this where no one knows much about myself or the books, but I thought (I could be wrong) that the people who run the Children's Book Festival were supposed to send out information about the writers to the schools (along with the titles of some of the author's books). Ah, maybe it's just the exhaustion setting in...!

After Bunclody I drove to Wexford town (or is it a city? I must check that before tomorrow - I don't want to upset anyone!) and found the hotel, a very nice - though old - place across the river that has a great view of the town.

Once settled, I walked back into the town and found the library where I'll be doing my final session tomorrow (after the morning session way, way across the county in New Ross). The library folk seem very nice and they're all prepared for tomorrow afternoon's event.

Off out now in search of food...

22:00

Since the traffic had died down a little I decided to drive across the bridge in my quest for sustenance. I used my brilliant - though secretly rubbish - navigation method: just keep driving and taking random turns until you find somewhere interesting. And it worked, too... I found a 24-hour Tesco, which - luckily - was still open. I purchased some foodstuffs and then found my way back to the hotel by more or less the same method.

I watched a few more episodes of The Adventures of Lano and Woodley while eating my yummy morsels, and now it's time for bed. Like the hotel in Waterford, this place is a little cold for my tastes. The heating seems to be on in the hallways (I can hear the radiators clanking from here) but there's no sign of the heating in the room working.

Not that I'm worried, because I've just had the best shower ever: incredible pressure, great heat... I didn't want to get out.

 

16:28

I'm home! Hooray!

Today's adventures: Got up at 06:00. A little early since I didn't have to be in New Ross until 9:30, but I knew from my drive-through yesterday that it's a complicated place so I wanted to be sure I had plenty of time.

What with packing and writing some notes on the laptop (I had a great idea for a new story in the middle of the night), I didn't leave the hotel until shortly after seven. Still plenty of time to get to New Ross, as it turned out... It was a pleasant drive and I took it easy, arriving in the town at about 08:10.

Good thing I got there early, because New Ross seems to be devoid of street names. Oh, the streets have names all right, but they're just not displayed. A few of the buildings on the corners sport rectangular patches about the size of the average street-name sign, but not the signs themselves. Perhaps they'd all be taken down for cleaning or something.

After a huge amount of driving around in circles - during which I discovered that certain streets are secretly one-way, and not always the way I was going - I found the library. It's located on the side of a hill that's so steep it seems to go straight up. Or, from the top, straight down. I was still far too early, so I sat in the car reading my computer magazine while I waited. That wasn't nearly as exciting as it sounds.

Eventually, it was time for the session to begin. The librarians and I put out the seats in the designated area and when the kids arrived we discovered that by sheer chance we'd put out exactly the right number of seats. That wasn't bad going because we'd only been guessing.

It was a very satisfying session; the kids responded really well and the time flew by so quickly that we actually overran by a good thirty minutes.

Then it was back across the county to Wexford town for the last session. Number fourteen out of fourteen...

And the last one was a biggie: over eighty kids from three different schools. It was a lively session and drew the attention of some of the library's other patrons. When it was done, I donated my copy of Quantum Prophecy: The Awakening to one of the schools (on the grounds that I wouldn't need it any more) then it was back into the authormobile for the long drive home.

 

01:06

I've had a couple of days to recover and catch up on my work, so... looking back, what did I think of this year's Children's Book Festival?

On the whole, it was fun, but there are definitely some things I'll do differently next year. For a start, I'll go back to last year's plan, in which I drove to each different city in the evening and stayed over, so that (a) I had plenty of time to locate the libraries, and (b) I didn't have to worry about driving to a barely-known location in the middle of the morning rush-hour.

Plus, four sessions in one day in Galway was a bit much. That had me wrecked for the rest of the week. So next year I'll put a cap on that: three sessions maximum per day.

And, of course, I'll try to make sure that we don't have a repeat of The Wexford Incident that had me driving back and forth across the county multiple times.