A woodful of stories

On tour, 

northern Scotland 

September 2016

a cloth, a drum and a kettle: ingredients for adventure

the terrible tongue fisherman

Down in the woods, on a boat in a pool, an angler hopes for sharks as he dangles his long tongue in the water. His friend launches baited hooks from his two rods, because of course you need two lines when fishing for octopus. 

a watchful tree

But the tree people watch, a dangerous squirrel broods, a unicorn that poohs rainbows canters by and a lone wolf-cub wanders through the woods of Evanton, wondering if she is the really the last wild wolf in Scotland. The situation, escalates: the fisherman's mast topples over, throwing him into the water but striking the matches in his bag setting a forest fire in motion,
causing a general stampede, 
attracting a passing dragon (romance on the horizon),
calling for unicorn rainbow rescues, 
a small twiggy firelog who extinguishes the fire with his eyes  
but that annoys the dragon, 
while the squirrels are peeing on the embers but  (I hope you are following this, there will be a test at some point)
one ember hatches a new, golden, dragon, 
and then the woodland fairies offer wolfhood to anyone who fancies it and the woods erupts into werewolves (or squirrelwolves, and treewolves and barkwolves.....).
So at the end, the fisherman is eaten by tadpoles, the wolf has a fmaily and two dragons fly off into the sunset and there is a party in the wood....

busy puppeteers

 
I’m back up in the north, telling stories, making puppets and generally leading people astray all over the place. Excitements his week include lots of chidlren in Rosebank Primary School and then two days with Evanton Community Wood: a school storywalk, a teacher-training session and then a day of public events where about 100 people joined us for messy, cheerful, leafy, twiggy, storyful sessions
A pause now on the Black Isle to gather what few wits I’ve ever had and prepare for another week of liveliness - and for the 3 Lochs Festival on Friday

props waiting for stories to unfold around them

Thanks to all the children, teacher,s parents and 

puppeteers of Rosebank and Evanton