Flowers within flowers

After work, I walked from the Strand down Fleet Street, up Fetter Lane and Leather Lane and on to The Crown in Islington to meet friends for a long-awaited catch-up. On Fleet Street is Lloyd's Bank and it has the most beautiful area for its cash machines - gorgeous tiles on the walls and ceiling. This is part of the ceiling design. I haven't done it justice.

The catch-up was a lot of fun. We swapped our A-Z mix CDs with much excitement. There was great hilarity and shock when four fish pies were delivered for dinner, and Fred was given a man-sized fish pie. The three ladies were not impressed by this assumption that Fred needed a man-sized portion. (There were only four fish pies left, so the large pie had to go to someone.) However, Fred polished it off without any effort and even helped with my macaroni, which had me beaten.

The working day was filled with bookfair chaos - Bologna Bookfair (the children's publishing fair) begins on Monday and the van to the fair left tonight. There were emergency strapline, bullet point and heading requests left, right and centre. Plus I had a book to approve for press. Bonkers! It's like this every year, no matter when the planning begins. Next week will be thankfully quiet when people are away. I've never been to Bologna, only to the Frankfurt and London bookfairs. I'll go one day, just to see what it's like.