Another date confirmed for the brilliant Summer Reading Challenge - Southsea Library on the 14th August at 11am.

I hope everyone has started reading their books already, but if not there is still time to join in. Just go to your local library and sign up for the Summer Reading Challenge. There are lots of fun events on, too. 

Hi Everyone, Just a quick blog - two new dates have been confirmed for the Mythical Maze Summer Reading Challenge. Porchester Library on 20th August, and Stubbington Library on 21st August. Please contact the libraries to book your places - it's all free, but book early to make sure you don't miss out!

I will be doing a fun packed interactive mythology talk, book reading, signing, and we will be drawing some mythological creatures - we will even be learning how to make up our own legends!

I hope to see you all there - check out my visits page for the times and dates.

I visited Alverstoke Junior School just over a week ago and wanted to post my full report on the day. I arrived early in the morning, greeted by Mrs Beetlestone, and ready to give an assembly.

Next was my workshop, given first to the year sixes, and then to the year fives. We talked about where mythological stories come from, how they develop, and many of the mythological creatures in Anglo-Saxon and Norse legends. We even drew our own mythological monsters. I hope everyone had as much fun as I did, and I was very impressed with all the suggestions that the children came up with. There were some really great ideas about how we could change an ordinary story into something more spectacular – something that could become a legend! With all those ideas I am sure some of you could write your own stories and become authors, so please start writing.

Mrs Beetlestone told me that all the children were talking about The Company of Goblins in the playground, so I hope to get a lot more pictures for the "Goblin Gallery" soon. Thank you so much to Mrs Beetlestone and everyone from Alverstoke Junior School.

Remember – over the school holidays there is the great Mythical Maze summer reading challenge, too. The challenge is to read six books from your local library – I hope everyone makes The Company of Goblins one of them!

I was at Alverstoke Junior School yesterday and a full report of the day will be coming soon. For now though, I was given a wonderful new picture for the "Goblin Gallery".

It is from Katie, Evie, Millie, and Lily.

Thank you so much, I'm really glad you enjoyed the mythology talk. More news soon, and look out for your picture when the Goblin Gallery is finally up and running.

Meow, meow, meow ... sorry, I forgot, most people can't read "cat" - I will translate -

Well, it was really really hard work travelling all the way up to Norway to investigate those strange Hessdalen lights. As you can see in this first picture, I'm working really hard picking out which yummy fruit cocktail to drink. I would have preferred a nice cool milkshake ... so it was a lot of work for me to pick out something else. 

The next day I had even more hard work to do. After eating, and eating, and eating ... it wasn't my fault, they just kept serving me food ... I had to have a long rest in the sun.  Phew, it was tiring. At home I can just curl up on a windowsill, but here I had to walk all the way up to the top deck of the ship! I'm sure everyone can appreciate how much hard work I had to do.

We finally arrived in Norway and I met my secret elven contact - I can't tell you his name because it wouldn't be a secret, then! He had long pointed ears, wings, and a large bow with lots of arrows.

He took me up to the special valley where the strange lights have been seen and I took lots of very detailed readings using my whiskers. The lights are very weird, we had to wait three nights to see them, but when they appeared, they seemed to float above the ground. My whiskers told me that they were electrically charged and over five thousand degrees in temperature - that's hotter than the surface of the sun!

I told the elves that I needed to do some more investigation to find out the cause of the lights.

I waved them farewell and had a long journey back to my ship. On the way home, the elves told me I should stop off and see the Briksdal Glacier in Olden. It was very cold up the mountain near the glacier even though it was summer - luckily I had my furry coat to keep me warm. The Briksdal Glacier was very special, and I am really glad I saw it, apparently it may not be there for very much longer because it is melting.

I hope you enjoyed my special report - more from me, Orlando, soon - meow, meow.