The key to happiness is having dreams

The key to happiness is having dreams..the key to success is making dreams come true.
~unknown

Today was a day of fulfilling Charlotte's dream of meeting Nick Sharratt.

Charlotte, while always a very good reader, has always loved to draw (blame the dad). From a very early age (probably 3) she decided that the best illustrator wasn't Quentin Blake, much to Michael's dismay, but Nick Sharratt. About a year ago, via the power of twitter, I managed to make a contact with someone who agreed to pass a letter of Charlotte's to Nick. This changed everything.

He wrote back. Not typed, Wrote. And there were stickers. And it was just to Charlotte.

Wow.

So today, we travelled back to Hay Festival for Charlotte to meet him. I could mention here how I waited, with a book, in line for over an hour to ensure Charlotte had good seats and how I left the event 25 minutes early to go wait in the autograph line to ensure we were first, but anyone who is a parent would have done the same.

And it was worth it.

Charlotte was able to chat with Nick (albeit it briefly as there were hundreds waiting in line), but he was very nice and sweet and really made Charlotte's day.

We then went to the Guardian Prize tent where they had a one to one with longlisted Book author of Sparks Ally Kennen.

Funny story: Charlotte's been desperate to find Candyfloss by Jacqueline Wilson but we haven't been able to find it on our travels. We went into one tent (Welsh TV) and there it was - like the Holy Grail. Without further ado, Michael went to pay for it and was quite impressed with the lady speaking Welsh to him (which isn't rare as we're on the border).

I turn to Charlotte and say 'Wow, isn't that great? We finally found it!'
Charlotte nudges me while flipping through the book, not being as happy as I'd thought she'd be. At first I thought she was thinking it was going to be too hard to read until I looked...

Yep, it was in Welsh.

More Hay Festival pictures here - with sun.