I am meant to be in a meeting.

📮A round-up of February, a prediction for March and definitely not a letter about fountain pens as I had originally intended.

Hi Powells,

I sat down to write to you twice last week but my brain wasn’t capable of producing words, let alone sentences, so I respected its cries for rest and ate pies instead.

February was an Absolute. Whirlwind. I went on a book tour for Marty Moose First Class Mischief which started with me gallivanting around London* wearing mouse ears, before I trotted off to Manchester* for a week of school visits and then rounded off the tour at the Waterstones Children’s Book Festival in Lincoln*. Two kids puked into a bucket and another had an accident whilst sat on their schoolroom floor. Nothing that couldn’t be mopped up with a few sheets of blue kitchen roll though so I think we can consider the tour a success. I came straight back to the studio, opened the door and was immediately swallowed whole by an intense Montgomery BonBon deadline. I somehow managed to do approximately 3 weeks’ worth of work in a mere 10 days and to everyone’s surprise delivered the job early! I celebrated this miraculous feat at 10pm on Wednesday 26th February 2025 with a homemade margarita and two stale cashew nuts.

I feel rather exhausted by February to be honest, and could do with a sit-down but that’s not scheduled until April 12th…

I only have until April 11th to artwork Marty Moose The Great Stamp-ede (aka. book 2). It’s rather*** a tight deadline, made even tighter by the fact that tomorrow I am travelling north for a few days of World Book Day** events with my pals at West Kirby Bookshop and, at the end of March, I am swanning off to Italy for the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. On April 5th I also turn 46 (or 47, I can’t remember) and I guess I should make time to blow a candle out and celebrate. Probably with another margarita and more stale cashews.

I think it’s safe to predict that March will be just as much of a whirlwind as February but that it will probably contain more gelato. I will update you in April.

I was going to share my new love for fountain pens today. BUT I’ve just had a notification about a Teams meeting that I’d absolutely forgotten about and which started minus 2 minutes ago…

I suggest we all crack on with Tuesday and I’ll save that riveting letter about pens for later this week!

Yours,

Powell x

*These are all places in the UK, located specifically in England.

**World Book Day is happening on 6th March in the UK. I don’t know why it’s not celebrated on the same day worldwide, I assume it’s just to confuse us.

***Horrendously tight, make no mistake about it.