AN AUTHOR VISIT TO ST. MICHAEL’S PRIMARY SCHOOL IN HIGHGATE

On November 17th I paid an author’s visit to a school packed with very fine story-inventing minds - in the two Year 5 classes I met, certainly, if not the entire school. As I often do, I brought along a bag of real shoes, together with my fake silver-topped cane and fake pearl. On the way home, thinking to make a short cut back to the Underground Station, I became hopelessly lost, and spent some while wandering the hilly streets of Highgate. I finally staggered out onto the Archway, starving hungry and with the strap on my shoe bag having worn a deep groove in my shoulder. But I got home before the light started to drain from the sky, which it does these days at around 4 o’clock. We move towards the winter solstice, the shortest, darkest day of the year. Let it come, I say…