Betty Birney's Blog

          There are way more Humphrey books in the UK than in the US .

My brief  brush with royalty was over and on Friday, Laura and I went to Corpus Christi Primary School in Herne Hill (in the Brixton/Lambeth area of London). In a bright, sunny new room, I met quite a delightful cast of storybook characters! Friendly teachers and students at Corpus Christi and excellent questions, too.

After my presentation and signing, we headed back to Faber and I was off to lunch with the Faber children’s marketing team (minus one, who was off).  After a jolly Italian lunch, I went off to huddle for an hour or so with my UK editor, Julia Heydon-Wells. Julia is about to go on maternity leave but we still had plenty of Humphrey planning to do.  I’ll always be grateful to Julia for picking up Humphrey for the UK, where the books are so popular, and so glad I’m with Faber!

 Rebecca, Susan, Laura, me, Julia, Kat at Faber on our way to lunch. We missed you, Lucie!

And that was the London leg of my trip. On Saturday, I took the train from Victoria Station to Surrey to visit my friends, Min,  Jonny and Suzy and her parents, Wendy and Roger – they have adjacent properties with a guest house in the former stables so it was to and fro through the bushes from one place to another for a few very happy days.

When I arrived, there had been several emergencies. One at Min’s and one at Wendy and Roger’s, where Henry,the dog, had become ill with something like a stroke. There are three dogs there: Henry, Boston and Lizzie. Luckily, Henry’s medication was working and the prognosis was good, though he was a bit wobbly and tended to veer to one side. He was still chipper and game to take a walk. And as always, there were friends and good eats, lots of laughs and walks and side trips. It all began in a very puzzling way — as the family gathered around to put together a jigsaw puzzle I’d had made of the three dogs from a photo I took on my previous visit in 2009. Next stop: a Pooh-tastic adventure with Min!

Min, Suzy, Jonny, Wendy and Roger