A Grown-Up Day

Today saw me wrestle with my pre-pregnancy smart trousers, swap Converse for heels, and unearth my tube pass from the very bottom of my handbag. Imagine that, a real life handbag. Not a changing bag masquerading as a handbag.

Then I waved goodbye to my little bean, left in the very capable hands of her Mary Poppins of a Grandma and skipped off to the London Book Fair for a day of *actual* work.

I’ll be honest, it wasn’t an overwhelming success. The tube was ghastly for a start. I forgot quite how depressingly bleary everyone is on rainy mornings. But once there, I immersed myself in all things booky which raised my spirits and kept my mind off the shenanigans I was missing out on at home.

In between meetings I managed to rush off (well, to be fair, it was more like tottering given my lack of practice walking in heels) to some very interesting seminars. I managed to catch an interview with the very hilarious Caitlin Moran, a talk on optimising social media, and a demonstration of the opportunities available in children’s ebooks. 

Unfortunately the demo was very technical in nature and had to be delayed because (I am not making this up) the right cable could not be found. Hmm… Still, it was so interesting that I wanted to find out more and searched out the company’s stand where I persuaded the CEO to give me a full demonstration. It was very impressive. The company will take a current ebook and either follow your directions on where to make them interactive, or make their own suggestions (children touch the lights in pictures and they switch on etc). One of the examples that raised my eyebrows was an illustration of a messy room with various items strewn everywhere. By clicking on the various items and moving them towards the cupboard or drawers, your child can ‘tidy up’ the room. Now, I’m all for the value of educational games, but surely physically tidying the room would be more productive? Just saying.

It was just about this time that my husband received a phone call. Apparently the GPS in Mary Poppins’ umbrella had stopped working and Grandma and Little Bean were lost. Neither of them happened to mention this little episode to me when I rang for welfare checks during the day. Another example of grandparents and grandchildren being in cahoots. 

Anyway, they managed to get home in one piece. Much later so did I – with sore feet from shoes and exhausted brain from playing with grown-ups all day. Tomorrow, round two…