Yesterday saw me travelling across to Southsea in Portsmouth to talk cartoons! The morning was spent giving the Year 2 children a session in cartoon basics, to launch them into a topic on comics and cartoons that they’ll be looking at in the coming weeks. The afternoon session was spent, firstly, with Year 1 who are looking at pirates. With their help telling me what a pirate looks like, I built up some quick large-scale doodles of the villians. They then had a go themselves, and their speed and imagination genuinely surprised me (which reminds me - I must ask for some copies). The final session was with Year R who told me in great detail about their sea creatures topic while I scribbled cartoons of real and fantastical sea creatures. It was quite a giggle, and made a nice change to spend a day in a school focused on cartoons.

Spent today at a wonderful primary school a banana’s throw from Marwell Zoo. Owslebury has to be the smallest school I’ve ever visited, but the atmosphere was hugely welcoming and friendly. I had some very useful feedback from the Reception teacher that I plan to combine into future visits to that age group (so thank you), while at the other end of the scale I had great fun doing speedy cartooning with Years 5 and 6. They carried this on in the afternoon session while I was with Years 3 & 4, and the resulting cartoons decorating their posters showed how well they’d taken it all in. Most impressive moment was a ten-year-old asking me if I liked Gerald Scarfe!

Just a quick thank you to Hordle Primary for making me feel welcome yesterday. A lovely school with some very positive and capable children. Good fun had by all!

Thank you to Mary and everyone at Pepperbox Preschool in Whiteparish for the warm welcome today. Holding the attention of three-year-olds for a long period is always a worry so I was particularly impressed that the children offered me their undivided attention throughout the session. After reading some of my stories I drew new creatures from bits of other animals suggested by the children, with some amazing name suggestions too, and also indulged in a mini drawing workshop before the children went off to create their own artwork. A great way to spend the morning!

Oak Lodge is a special needs school quite close to where I live. I visited two classes of children last year which seemed to go down well, so this year the decision was taken to get a little more ambitious. We had a great time drawing Beaulieu the Hedgehog from my New Forest Friends books and then the children had been given the opportunity to buy signed copies of my books, which was a pleasing success. Thanks to all the staff and pupils, particularly Andrew Smart, for making me feel so welcome.

I last visited Sholing Infants a few years ago, and the school’s undergone quite a transformation since then. Staff and pupils were wonderfully friendly and the children produced some excellent artwork. Thanks for having me.

Spent a great day with Year 2 of Ringwood Infants yesterday. Very enthusiastic and curious children, with one particular class sending me off on all sorts of tangents with their thoughtful questions and observations. I’m already looking forward to going back next year.