Finally, I have finished all the illustrations for book number two - what a great feeling! It was a bit of a race in the end because I needed the pictures finished by last Friday before I went away for the weekend. I was putting the final touches on several of the illustrations that morning and then rushing outside to cover them in the fixative spray. They were lined up on the ironing board to dry, while I finished packing my bag.

All of the images are now scanned and I am in the process of making another dummy book so that I can see how the flow of words and pictures work together. I enjoy arranging the illustrations and gluing them into place alongside the text - it makes the whole project seem real when it is all put into a book format.

No ideas for a title yet. That is always the hardest part. I didn't even have a title for my first book when I initially sent it to the publisher. Even though the story was about my Grandad, I didn't want 'grandad' or 'grandfather' in the title. The book needed something a little different. Thankfully, a friend of mine suggested 'Custard and Carriages' after seeing the illustrations and reading through the manuscript and it stuck.

And while I'm on the subject of the first book, this afternoon I was looking through some of the old photos of Grandad that I used as reference shots for my illustrations. I came across several pictures of him when he was driving a big black steam engine (J1211), which I seem to remember was called the Crunchie Train. It was touring around the country and when the train came to Greymouth MY Grandad was the driver and I got to ride in it with my cousins. We were all terribly excited!

I think this train was the one connected to the Crunchie bar ad that aired on tv a long time ago, during a promotion for Cadburys in the mid-1990s. And because it's an awesome advert, take a look.