Saturday 2 July 2011


















Well...I have now completed two performances of the Mongolian Boy and his Rather Strange Horse. The first was for an audience of mainly very small people and their mums and dads..in a yurt. My two lovely daughters manned the rod puppets and I told the story. The children were very good and they engaged with the characters and the story but in truth it was probably a bit too 'old' for them. Eli and Vicki then won them all over by making impromptu hobby horses to give away from the scraps of cardboard and hazel wands.
David Dempsey very kindly filmed it so I can study what not to do as well as what to do.
The second time was with the brilliant assistance of two gifted teachers Suseela and Mariamah on the rods and to the whole of Inwoods Small School and staff. They ranged in age between four and ten..the perfect ages. Great fun. I need to work out a way to be fluent with the stort telling and be more hands on with the puppets. They are quite fragile so that needs addressing too.

As well as the paper rod puppets I have now been working on sewn bodies and clothes with Flymo hands and heads.
The local bookshop is interested in giving me a space to perform so that is very exciting.

Thursday 14 April 2011

A poem for Clare when the missiles fell, relentless

The wind unites us.
I breathe in warm, moist air
that riffles my summer garden.
Feel it, laden with life.

You lie, tube pierced and fevered
with hot, dry heat
in a land where mountains range
and wilderness once reigned

So many love and keen for you
watching as you strive for each
and every goal.
Your courage makes me small.

Your beauty is marvellous
The warrior queen, constant at your shoulder
holds your loyal and love drawn troops
who wait in serried ranks for word of you.

They light fires, beat the drum, bake fragrant bread,
dance to ancient chants
so that you will know you are not alone.
The wind blows our love,

it carries our strength to you
shedding as it moves, our tears.
As you lie gently sleeping, quietly dreaming
it stirs across the veranda

where a nest is made
to ease you.
Bringing scents of lavender and jasmine
creamy with white blooms of philadelphus
and echoes of childhood smiles,

wet dogs running.
As I breathe I smell New England
and Pollyanna Glad Day
pink candy floss bright

wild flower meadows
and cow belch warmth.
Sleep, slumber deep,
while the winds unite us

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Yipes..I haven't written an entry since last August







Scrabble says what are they?



Coo...Time has slithered away like soap bubbles down the plug hole.




Scrabble is now eleven months old and we have two smaller editions..well not so little really. Now they are quite chunky. Like miniature rugby players with slightly bowed legs and meaty thighs. They were like two starvin'Marvins when we first got them just before Christmas..Eli had them curled up inside a couple of home made Xmas stockings and when she handed them over to her father..he had asked for a thirty two foot long fishing boat it should be remembered..he at first thought they were stockings with hot porridge, or worse, in the bottom.. When the two almost completely hairless heads emerged it was not at all clear whether they were puppies or large mutant rats. The mange had left them with big sores and lots of pink skin. The pictures above are after they have been to the vet,(at huge expense and thank you Eli) fed vast amounts of high protein food(thank you David) and tea spoons full of cod liver oil...and loved til they knew no escape for around two or three weeks.
The woman who bred them just didn't have a clue. She thought it was enough to give them breakfast cereal. They both had horror movie worms...and we did wonder whether or not they might just explode after we first fed them roast chicken..they turned into little balloons with legs. For the first few weeks they had to wear socks with holes cut in them for their legs to poke through...
Now they are properly transformed into speedy little thugs who love to hide under the branches of the big old shrub by the back door rather than come in like good girls.