I have a cold that makes me sound like I am an old man, so if I picture Wallace with his buddies Gromit and Sean the sheep I feel much better.

Introducing. . . .Ollie softy! After countless prototypes, sewing, tweaking, knitting, pulling out stuffing, and a bit of squeezing, the Ollie softy finally looks like Ollie. This is just a peep because the Ollie softy will be in shops late 2011. It takes time to make lots of softies and put them in a special box! I can't wait to see a big family of Ollies together.

To the delight of myself and Totoro the new Friends for Keeps books are now in Japanese! The first sample arrived this week.

A bundle of these guys arrived in the mail yesterday. A little army of dragon shelf stands! Hopefully some of them will pop up in bookshops.