Don't point your lens straight at the sun...

Sunlight on water at Horsley Mill, near Nailsworth. Gloucestershire. I was here in this little-known valley to do a storytelling course in one of the buildings. The valley is (fish-) farmed and managed by the Ruskin Mill Educational Trust, a Rudolf Steiner organisation that provides outdoor-based education for youngsters who have learning difficulties. My course was nothing to do with RMET, but the venue turned out be be ideal, despite the building being stone cold at start of day. We were able to pop in and out of doors to complete the various exercises, sometimes singly and sometimes in groups and pairs. At lunchtime we walked down the valley to the cafe at t'other Mill, Ruskin Mill, (see here for a recent blip-image https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2008673762794276050 ).

All in all, the course was a great inspiration and I have already started prepping some tales for re-telling. I suspect it will be most useful in the nursery setting, but I do not want to confine myself to telling stories to two and three year-olds! For all of this I have to thank a chance encounter with the course leader. Fiona, at a party two months ago, where I was expected to 'do a turn', but did not know how to strip down a favourite fable to render as a ten-minute party piece! It's a lot clearer now.

I hope to do more courses and work of this sort in the future. Fortunately, Stroud has a storytelling group, so I will need to cast my prejudices about cloak--wearing hippies to the wind and see where fancy takes me!