This is where I went...

I'm in the hotel in Cork, following a rather long day... Left the house this morning at 7:00, and drove 90 miles to Waterford.

It was an interesting drive - especially the first part; getting out of Dublin. I was going against the traffic and so had much fun waving and smiling at all the cars going in the other direction at about 0.01 mph because they were stuck in the usual seven-mile-long tailback for The Gateway to Hell (otherwise known as the M50 toll bridge).

I arrived in the outskirts of Waterford at about 9:00, whereupon it took half an hour to drive the 1 mile to the car park. That's karma for you: The traffic gods don't take kindly to being taunted.

Two schools' worth of "younglings" (© George Lucas 2005) turned up for the event in the Central Library - all boys - and it was partly filmed by an RTÉ crew for an upcoming programme on adult literacy. As you can imagine it was quite a struggle to get the boys to pay attention to me rather than the camera, and I had just about managed it when one of the camera crew's lights got knocked over.

My attempts to scupper my rival authors met with little success: the boys didn't believe me when I told them that homework had been invented by Darren Shan. Need to be more convincing next time.

Best question: "If you had to choose to be any other writer, who would it be?" My answer of "It would have to be someone younger, and with more money, and better hair" prompted the somewhat disturbing suggestion of "Celia Ahern."

After that, it was off to Ardkeen Library for another session. Unfortunately there had been a minor communications breakdown between the library and the school as to where the session was to be held. We discovered this after about twenty minutes... So myself and Lorraine from the library drove to the school, arriving a mere twenty-five minutes late (from their point of view). It was a girls' school, and some great questions were asked, such as "If you weren't a writer, what else would you be?" My answer: "Broke."

Unfortunately the shortness of the session meant that I didn't have enough time to do any reading, but Lorraine had brought along eight or nine copies of the books and when it was time to go the girls snapped them up, which was great to see!

I'm hoping that I've managed to steal some readers away from J.K Rowling, though my claims that Colin Wagner could beat up Harry Potter were met with a good deal of disbelief. Still, at least I planted the suspicion that Ms Rowling was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.

After leaving Ardkeen I drove to Cork. This was not a fun drive because I was heading west and the sun was in my eyes the whole way (I think I might blame Joe Craig for that one).

I found the hotel easy enough, but I couldn't find its car park, so I had to drive around and around until I found a spot on the side of the road. It was on The Steepest Hill in the Universe. I'm not kidding: it felt like it was at about 45 degrees. I could barely open the car door for fear of toppling out and rolling down the hill.

So I walked - very carefully - back to the hotel for a quick game of musical bedrooms (which seems to be something of a tradition for me), then headed out to find the library.

Fact: Cork has more shoe shops per square yard than anywhere else on the planet, yet the Cork people seem to have the same number of feet as the rest of us. Weird.

 

After a light but hearty dinner consisting of an unadorned bread roll and the last remaining sandwich in the local shop (it's not all expense accounts and massive restaurant bills, you know), I retired to my room where I watched I, Robot on this very laptop (I brought a bunch of DVDs with me - bitter past experience has taught me that hotel rooms never have anything good on TV), and fell asleep, only to be woken up a couple of minutes ago by some idiot in the corridor who didn't seem to mind chatting loudly on his mobile phone to someone called "Janice." I don't know what the guy's name is so I've decided to call him Clement.

So I've had about six hours' sleep - not bad for me. I did have some weird dreams though, mostly about driving up and down scarily-steep hills.

The new laptop (sorry: notebook PC) is working out pretty well so far. The keyboard isn't bad, but the Artificial Mouse Substitute - a little touch-pad thingy - is a total pain. It seems to have a mind of its own, and I'm not entirely convinced that it's a mind that would ever pass any sanity tests. Maybe it's the way Windows is set-up or something, but sometimes I try to move the pointer and it decides to pick up and drop files when I don't want it to. I'll need to go exploring through the various millions of Windows' settings to turn off the annoying default option of "single-click means yes, I do want to select and open this file" because combined with the touch-pad's erratic behaviour I've managed to do some really odd things (and I'm not entirely sure I've un-done them correctly).

I've just realised that I forgot to bring my Mach Three razor with me! I could buy another one, but I've already got two of them so that would be a bit wasteful. Darn it - this means that by the time I get to the Galway sessions I'll be all stubbly-chinned. I hate that. I wonder what else I forgot to bring?

Anyway, Clement seems to have resolved his difficulties with Janice and gone to bed. Good for him. I'll give him half an hour and then go and stand outside his room, talking loudly on the phone. Maybe I'll even pretend I'm talking to Janice - that'll freak him out.

 

Made it to Limerick and am safely ensconced in a small but neat hotel room.

Clement should consider himself lucky: last night I drifted back to sleep rather quickly, and didn't re-wake until 8:30.

Lots of fun today... After a big breakfast consisting of many fried things, I made my way to the library where I had a great time talking to about a billion kids. Well, no, maybe not a billion, but certainly about seventy. The highlight was being asked to present an award to young Claire Healy, the winner of the National Bookfest Bookmark Design award.

Still not much luck persuading the youth of Ireland that all other writers are evil; even my revelation that Eoin Colfer invented Monday mornings didn't make any difference.

After that, it was a quick drive to nearby Glanmire. I was scheduled to be there at 13:30 but managed to arrive exactly one hour early. This turned out to be incredibly fortuitous because the librarians, the teachers and the students were all expecting me at 12:30. Lucky I'd abandoned my original plan to have lunch in Cork before leaving for Glanmire...

There were only about thirty boys and girls present, but they were really sharp and kept me on my toes. One young man in particular - who shall remain nameless - seemed to be particularly keen (or should I say "Cian"?) on out-smarting me. But I've been doing this for a long time so he was out of luck. Nice try, though!

They didn't believe for a moment that Jacqueline Wilson is responsible for the invention of school, nor that I invented Christmas and sunshine.

Then it was into the Authormobile once more for the drive to Limerick. This was a lot more pleasant than the drive from Waterford to Cork, sun-in-the-eyes-wise, but once I reached Limerick I had to participate in a game of "find the hotel." That is, I knew where I was, and I knew where the hotel was, but I couldn't figure out how to get there. Apparently the correct method is to just keep driving through Limerick's fascinating one-way system until you happen to arrive at the hotel by chance.

Once I'd settled in, I decided to seek out the library for tomorrow morning's event. I eventually found the library disguised as a building I'd already walked past twice.

I've only been gone from home since yesterday morning, but I miss my wife, my cat and my internet connection.

The fire alarm's just gone off in the hotel. I grabbed my key and charged down the stairs to be greeted with a crowd of... none. The receptionist told me that in her experience people don't react the way they're supposed to. Strange... They'd rather burn to death than get up off their bums and see if there really is a fire. This time there wasn't, but only a idiot would take that chance. Which means that this is a hotel full of idiots (except me and the staff, of course).

I spent yesterday evening in the hotel room, reading comics on the laptop (I recently received a present of the first 500 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man on CD-Rom - these are proper bought CDs, of course, not bootlegs), and then I watched Batman Begins. Went to bed at about 23:00 and discovered the joys of staying in a bedroom very close to the elevator: all night long it was whirr, whirr, bing and the like. I finally fell asleep sometime after midnight.

Sleep was uneventful until very early this morning when I had a dream that I was back in secondary school. But it wasn't just the usual dream of being back in school; I had somehow transported my mind back in time, so I knew all that I know now... Trouble was, I couldn't remember much about my school friends so it was a little awkward at first. Towards the end of the dream I was walking down a corridor when I was attacked by two bullies (this never happened to me in real-life secondary school - only in primary school). And in the dream, I managed to beat the living snot out of the bullies, because I was not only me, I was also... Spider-Man! Damned satisfying dream, that!

It must have been something I ate. Or maybe - just maybe - it was the combination of reading all those Spider-Man comics combined with meeting hundreds of kids.

Anyway, I'm off out in a few minutes to the Granary Library for this morning's session, then I'll be heading off to Shannon, then to Galway. So today's driving looks to be a little easier than yesterday or Monday: it's only about twenty minutes to Shannon and another hour or so to Galway. Tomorrow's going to be the tough one; driving back from Galway to Dublin and arriving just as the rush-hour starts...

I'm in the hotel in Galway. Finally. I'd expected to get here hours ago.

Today's adventures: The class in Limerick was good fun; the kids were really sharp - too smart to believe that Anthony Horowitz invented boiled vegetables - and they asked a lot of great questions, some of which really caught me out.

After Limerick I headed off to Shannon, a relatively short journey so I arrived in plenty of time (after yesterday's almost-disaster in Glanmire, I wasn't taking any chances). I had lunch in the Shannon Court shopping centre - my first hot meal since Breakfast in Cork (which is not a song, but should be).

The Shannon session was a little unusual; instead of primary-school kids, they were first- and second-year secondary. Uh oh... My first question in these sessions is usually, "So, does anyone know who I am?" Normally, one or two will raise their hands. That happened this time; so far, so good. Second question: "Does anyone want to know who I am?" Primary-school kids always answer Yes to that. Secondary-school kids always remain silent and look at me with that expression that says, "Go on then. Entertain us."

They were a tough audience, but I think that in the end they didn't hate me too much (the questions really started to flow once I told them that I was running out of things to say, so if they didn't have anything to ask me then I'd wrap up the session and they could go back to school). Many - if not most - of the questions came from a young lady with red strawberry-blonde hair. I suspect that she might be evil.

The session was recorded by a non-evil strawberry-blonde-haired lady called Christina, for Shannon Community Radio. Afterwards Christina interviewed me one-on-one and didn't seem to mind too much that I was finding it hard to stop talking.

Next, the Authormobile took me on a long drive to Galway. Now, regular readers will know that I was in Galway only a few weeks ago, so as you can imagine I didn't have any problems whatsoever.

Except that I did have problems... I found Galway easily enough, and I knew that the hotel was close to the Westside Library, and I thought that I knew where the library was. I couldn't find it. It was dark, rush-hour, raining very heavily and Galway is tragically bereft of signposts. I was lost, hungry, tired and in dire need of the little author's room.

After driving around for what seemed like hours, and actually was hours if you include the journey from Shannon, I decided I'd had enough. I was passing what looked like an industrial estate, so I pulled into the car park with the plan that I'd consult all my maps one more time, and maybe wait until the traffic had thinned a little.

I stopped the car, had a look around and realised that I was parked right next to a large grey building called "Library." So I went in, asked if this was the Westside library, and... It was! Perhaps the fates had decreed that they'd messed me around enough for one day, and magically delivered me to the right address!

So now I'm in the hotel, having purchased this evening's repast (a bread roll and two Nutri-Grain Elevenses bars). Though I might just go nuts tonight and go out for a meal or something...

The hotel is pretty swanky; a little bit over-the-top for my tastes. The bed is wider than it is long - I even took a photo of it because I know you won't believe me:

The Westside Library, Galway. Just had a minor scare out in the car park waiting for the library to open: I thought I'd kill some time by working on the laptop, but it wouldn't switch on... A little worrying since it was fully charged when I shut it off last night. Right now it's plugged into the mains and working fine (otherwise I wouldn't be able to write this), and with the session about to start in a few minutes I probably won't get a chance to test it before I get back to Dublin this evening.

Last night I did indeed decide to go out for a meal, but it was still raining like mad and I felt absolutely miserable, so I gave up, went back to the hotel and spent an hour or so reading more Spider-Man comics.

Woke up nice and early this morning and decided to go for a good long drive all over the area. In other words, I visited in daylight all the places that I accidentally visited last night in the darkness and the rain. This is one of them:

Home! Hooray! It's a long, long drive from Galway to Dublin, but getting home makes it all worthwhile!

Today's events in the Westside Library went without any trouble, even though - as always - none of the kids knew anything about me other than my name and the fact that I'm an author. But they all responded well to the reading (I read a few pages from the prologue to The Quantum Prophecy), and seemed eager to know more.

Now, over the years I'd done a lot of these sessions (never so many in such a short space of time, though), and in the past week something new has cropped up... During the Q&A part of the sessions, an eager youngster will raise his or her hand, and - when picked - will ask, "Can we have no homework tonight?" As if I somehow have the power to grant them freedom from homework (they'd really need to talk to Darren Shan about that one, wouldn't they?).

All my candid revelations about the terrible things other authors have done were quickly denounced as "Lies!" by the students, so it looks like I'm going to have to come up with something more realistic next time. Shame that they didn't believe me about Roald Dahl being the driving force behind early bedtimes.

Anyway, all too soon it was all over, and it was time for the drive back to Dublin.

Since leaving the house on Monday morning I drove 498 miles. I know that a lot of people cover that sort of distance every week, but that's more than I'd usually drive in a month.

I'd definitely like to do this sort of thing again, but eight sessions in four days was a bit much. During the last one I started to forget what I'd said to which group...

On the whole, the kids, their teachers and the librarians all seemed to enjoy themselves, and that's really what it's all about: they had a good time, and now they know who I am! You just can't buy publicity like that. Unless you have lots of money.

(The laptop seems to now be working fine... I don't know what happened - maybe I wasn't pressing the "on" button in the right way!)