This week is supposed to be my “non-school” week, but I couldn’t resist taking up Balcarras’ invitation to give an assembly to their Year 8 students yesterday — they have had me there three times now and I’ve been so impressed by their enthusiasm! I had an hour with the students yesterday, followed by going [...]

And so my week of Gloucestershire schools comes to an end, kind of. I’ve been asked to go back to two of them next week, and to do another week in September — I’ve been very impressed by the enthusiasm of the schools I’ve visited! Yesterday it was back to Balcarras for two sessions. One [...]

I did four sessions at three different schools yesterday — it was another very enjoyable and productive day in Gloucestershire. I started off at Balcarras School in Cheltenham where I spoke to two different groups of Sixth Form geography students. I had about an hour with each group so this was plenty of time to [...]

I did five sessions at Farmor’s School in Fairford today, plus a meeting with the Sixth Form Charity Committee and a quick photo shoot with the local paper — my busiest day yet! This was brilliantly organized — a uni friend is the Deputy Head and he really made the most of having me there [...]

If you grew up in a pretty dysfunctional family like mine (and so many of us did, let’s face it), it really is a wonder that you’d bother getting married at all. However, being a bit of an optimist as well as a risk-taker in some ways, I took the plunge in 2005. It didn’t [...]

Oooooh my legs are sore today! But not as bad as I’d thought they’d be, which is good. Luckily I don’t have too much running around today — my last (and tenth!) school visit in Warwickshire was this morning, at King Henry VIII’s senior school. This was my first “return” visit. I spoke to the [...]

If you had told me six months ago that I’d be up at 6am to join 4000 people in running a 10K race in Warwickshire I would have wet myself laughing. As would anybody who’s ever known me actually — whether you did shots with me in Geronimo, shared a cigarette or two back in [...]

I had a lovely afternoon hanging out with the Hawkers today. I try to see them every time I am in England, and we always spend time together when they come to Japan. It’s weird because we’ve become really close, and love spending time together, but there is always that feeling that you really wish [...]

I’ve just set up a fundraising page for the money that people keep giving me along my travels! Raise Money Online var rand=Math.random (); document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’http://funds.gofundme.com/index.php?route=widgets&d=420&s=2&url=/5flbk&t=4&v=”+rand+”‘ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));

I managed a bit of a lie-in this morning — I would have gone running but I’m doing a 10K run on Sunday! My first ever proper run! My mates signed me up for the Two Castles Run in which about 4000 people participate. I will probably come last but I really don’t care. I [...]