Friday, November 4th, last year was when GAS made some new little friends, they came with Wendy De Rusett, storyteller, puppeteer and drama teacher. And, as you may imagine, our new friends weren't exactly human!

Grace and Carrie met a clever wee lad in jeans and an orange talking fish!

My favourite was the big black craw - well, he was bigger than his common or garden brothers!

The craw was busy telling me that he was the the craw that wasna there at aa in the song, because he'd come to see us instead! What a bonnie singer!

Pat was none too impressed by another laddie who seemed intent on becoming her toy boy! (See, he's on her knee already! What an amorous wee ninkum!)

Nae content with one girlfriend, oor hero tries to impress Margaret with a hilarious story. She's laughing, but probably at his exaggerated performance than the standard o his jokes!

The Exalted Sultana of Deepest Lumphanan mediates with the aid of her magic frog companion.

Then we hid a leprecaun that hid decided to try his hand at being a far-eastern mystic. His first consultation seemed only to result in hilarity!

Of course, it was aa too much for the auld yin, 'Och, I quid fair go ma bed! I'm jist an auld auld mannie!'

You've guessed it, our 'new friends' were all part of Wendy's puppet collection!

Puppets, as she explained, were a very good way of getting children interested in a story, and especially to bring a shy child out of themselves, as we all could see! The minute you have a puppet to operate wther it's something as simple as a sock, or as intricate as the 'people', you instantly have an alter ego to hide behind, because the puppet can say all the silly things you would never say yourself!

Wendy allowed us to swap puppets and asked us what noise they made, or how they spoke, and we had a ball! Some of the 'people' puppets are sometimes of use in oral reminiscence, but of course, not everyone can suspend their disbelief as easily as young children!

The other thing we were encouraged to try was 'shadow theatre' - basically, to get an old orange box, cut the bottom off it and cover it with tracing paper, which gives you your theatre, and then cut out your shapes in black card, stick a straw - the bendy variety - onto the back and while shining a lamp from behind your 'theatre', make the characters move about on the 'stage'. This brought me back to the days of shadow theatre that used to be on the telly, and someone said it reminded them of the old Magic Lantern shows, which carried on long after the invention of the cinema.

Wendy's visit helped us all realise there are many many creative ways of telling a tale. Get an old sock and some stick-on circluar lables, make the latter into eyes, and you've just invented a storyteller's helper!

Thanks to Wendy for travelling down from Findochty, near Buckie, Morayshire, where she is based, to entertain us on a caul' winter nicht!

FJB