Part 1:
The castle smells sweet today because Poppy’s baking – in fact she’s baking more biscuits for the tonight’s launch party. These handmade treats will join the shop-bought biscuits I wrote about yesterday.

Biscuits aren’t the only thing Poppy’s been cooking up – all the food we’ll be serving is inspired by my tics.

Here’s a run down:

“Pear and biscuit tart”: biscuits layered with marzipan, topped with slices of pear and popped in the oven.
“Mould your tears into cheese”: bruschetta, homemade tapenade and a tear-shaped slice of cheese.
“95% of biscuits are birds”: Bird-shaped cardamom and pistachio biscuits.
“Snog a milk bottle”: Jelly lips and milk bottle sweets mixed up together in a big jar.
“I’m a cheeseboard in 1972”: A selection of retro cheeses, with grapes for an added for a 1970s feel.
“Square cheese is the cousin of lychees”: A cube of cheddar and a lychee skewered on a toothpick.

The food’s only one element of the event that we’re all busily preparing – Leftwing Idiot’s doing an amazing job co-ordinating everything and trouble-shooting last minute glitches.

I’m really looking forward to this evening and to celebrating the book with my friends, family and supporters who help make my life in Biscuit Land a happy one.

Part 2:
What an amazing evening! We welcomed over a hundred guests, the mix of people who came was lovely, and they all contributed to the warm atmosphere.

The party got off to a tense start because a small cupboard fire in another part of the gallery meant we had only ten minutes to set everything up! I arrived to find a fire engine outside, together with everything and everybody to do with the party. Thankfully, true to form my friends stepped up and stepped in to make sure everything was ready in the nick of time.

I gave a speech that was greatly improved by loads of tics, not just my own. Ruth’s contributions made it even more chaotic and funny than normal. I ticced along with Chiv while he sang my old favourite, “One Scotch, One T-Shirt, One Bear.” I signed a load of books, ably assisted by Poppy and another friend, Trish, who took it in turns to hold my hand still so I could write.

Just before my speech Leftwing Idiot took me to one side and gave me a print of the photograph that’s on the cover of the book. It’s a beautiful reminder of our surreal day in Devon, and of everything we’ve achieved together so far.

Tonight’s party was exactly the celebration of creativity and friendship I’d hoped it would be. Now I’m looking forward to seeing what we can all do together next.