We have both given talks on The Biggest Twitch recently, Alan to Ysgol ( that’s School ) Criag-y-don in Llandudno and Ruth to the Women’s Institute at Rowen in the Conwy Valley. The school children were very excited at meeting a World Record holder and many wanted autographs, first time we have had this! At the end, and sometimes during, the presentation the kids asked questions about our adventure and had some great ones which took a good deal of thought to answer fully. These included asking about cultures, climates and of course birds and even weird things we might have seen in the night! The WI also enjoyed their talk enormously Ruth receiving two standing ovations and again a whole host of varied questions. Our next talk is together at RSPB Conwy to a sell out crowd to help raise money for the new boardwalk at the reserve.Alan made a late afternoon visit to the Conwy Estuary just south of the RSPB reserve to see what gulls were coming in to roost on the mudflats here. It was very cold but the tide was just right with the water dropping exposing mudflats nice and close so views were very good indeed. If the tide is to low the gulls are scattered far and wide across the mudflats and sand banks and can be very distant. Large numbers of gulls were dropping down on to the newly exposed mud, the majority were Black-headed Gulls and nearly all adult birds, it looks as though the birds had a poor breeding season last year or that mortality of juvenile birds has been very high this year? Amongst these were a good number of Common Gulls and nice to see a much healthier proportion of young birds amongst the adults. Herring Gulls were also coming in and six Lesser Black Backed Gulls arrived and just one juvenile Great Black Backed Gull stood head and shoulders above the rest with its massive powerful black bill. But try as hard as possible no rare species could be found amongst the thousands of commoner species, better luck next time.Yesterday we had a very early start as we left Llandudno just after 5am to catch an early train to London for meeting with a possible publisher for The Biggest Twitch book. We got in to town nice and early for the meeting so had time to sample two Hot Chocolate venues, much needed much colder than in nice mild North Wales. The meeting went very well and we know have to wait for the board of directors to approve the idea so fingers well and truly crossed. The very nice man from the publishers then took us out for lunch at a Malaysian restaurant just round the corner where we enjoyed great food and conversation. Then it was back on the train back to Llandudno. Speeding through the grey, dull almost lifeless farmland of England we could not help but think of the vibrant colours, wonderful sunshine, amazing people and birds we were seeing this time last year in Ethiopia. Time to knuckle down and get the book written then start planning our next big adventure!