I'm an idiot.

Many moons ago, I developed Storyship, a device for delivering a session of stories from around the world. It started off with a group of children, an A4 printed map and a felt-tip pen to draw our route, travelling the world in our Storyship, with a story from each part of the world we stop in.

 This developed to a full-size map of the world to be hung up while delivering the session. The Storyship became an actual tiny model of a ship - or, failing that, a paper cut-out. The paper version looked a bit pants and was hard to get to the right size; the model ship was very difficult to persuade to stick to a vertical map with blu-tac (and various other contrivances including magnets.) It kept falling off the world!

So why did it take me this long to realise the solution is to make the ship out of blu-tac?!

I did a Storyship session for some older adults at the Dick Institute in Kilmarnock yesterday. They were a wonderful audience who were very appreciative. And the clydebuilt blu-tac Storyship did stick to the map throughout - which is a new achievement!

We went to Ireand first, for the King who had the Ears of a Horse (in which a Head of State must cope with his most embarrassing secret getting out - I'm nothing if not topical!) Then to France for one of Perraut's fairytales about a woman getting sausages stuck up her nose. Then to Kenya, for some animal antics with Hare, whose happy home seems to have been commandeered by a terrifying monster (this is a story I include mosty for the opportunity to do my trademark elephant noise). Then to Australia for Walzing Matilda (which they joined in with gusto); Malasia to meet Pak Pandir, the famous eejit; China to find out who will succeed the Emperor; Finland, where a melancholy prince has been convinced that it is "loathsome to be human"; and finally home to Scotland, for a rousing chorus of Auld Lang Syne.

We live in a vast and rich world of stories. So why not come aboard the Storyship and travel with me? We don't need to leave the room!