A Horny Problem ...

After the last author talk for a while, it's time to get back to preparations for The Kelpie's Song panto. Rehearsals are going well, and the actors are beginning to do without their scripts so their acting's coming on in leaps and bounds (literally!).

Masks for the 'fish sprites' are made, and now all that's left to do is finish King Kelpie's mask ... and there's the rub. Because - sshhh! don't tell - King Kelpie is ACTUALLY King Unicorn, who's been put under a wicked spell by Esmeralda Crystal (boo! hiss!). And the culmination of the panto is the re-attachment of his Royal Horn.
Now, making this horn has been quite unexpectedly challenging. Here are the Horns So Far:

Horn no 1 - cardboard with paper mache

Horn no 2 - kitchen roll inside 

Horn no 3 - Adam's idea, an ice-cream cone coated with PVA

Horn no 4 - foam rubber ...

... carved into shape

There's still a bit of work to be done because - yes, you spotted it, the 'horn' looks more like a courgette at the moment. Or a baguette. Or The Gherkin. Or ... suggestions welcome, but be careful!!!!

Castle Hamster goes to Turnberry!

There can't be many more salubrious locations in Scotland than the famous golfing hotel, Turnberry, and that's where Castle Hamster and I headed yesterday for the Turnberry Children's Book Event today.

Alongside Linda Strachan, Frank Rodgers, and Maggi Gibson, I gave a talk about There's a Hamster in my Pocket which - of course - culminated in the Toffee 'n Caramel game!

Books were provided for sale by Scotia Books, and the event was sponsored by The Herald, so of course there were lots of photos taken. Here I am with Calum and Emilia (and Caramel and Toffee, balanced precariously on their shoulders) being posed on the grand staircase. I was particularly impressed by Emilia's wonderful PINK outfit - she was a perfect Castle Hamster helper!

Thanks also to Emilia's mum for taking this, and several other, photos.

The event was organised by Gayle Harthill, and it went extremely well.

I spent Thursday night being thoroughly spoilt - wined and dined to the accompaniment of a lone piper pacing the ramparts, then sleeping in the most luxurious bedroom I've ever seen; and after my event Gayle kindly took this photo of me with the doorman, Mark Armit, who is seen here wearing his special Turnberry tartan. Could Castle Hamster be Turnberry's new Pets' Wing I wonder? It does match remarkably well!

And after all the excitement, I went off to the delectable spa and swam and sauna'd to my heart's content - a great end to a great day.

Amazing the places a couple of robot hamsters can get you into, isn't it ...

EAR we go!

Today I worked on the Kelpie mask. I covered the wire armature for the nose with plaster bandages, then attached ears:

It's definitely looking more horse-like. I'd have liked the nose to be a bit longer, but I feel that would cause major problems with weight, and make the whole thing very awkward to wear.

Mind you, I think even as things stand it IS going to be very awkward to wear, and before I do too much more I'm going to let Allan try it on.

He must, after all, be able to:

BREATHE
SEE
SPEAK
and
SING


Fingers and hooves crossed!!

Wigtown Book Festival

Well, the Wigtown Book Festival is over - and Toffee, Caramel and I had a great time!

Here I am in the Children's Marquee waiting for the audience to arrive. I'm with Esther, who introduced me very professionally.

And in full flight, ready to start the Toffee 'n Caramel Game ...

... with my two helpers, Ben and James.

We're preparing to play the game with the Toffee 'n Caramel 'robots', and we did play four quite exciting rounds with them; but Ben and James had brought along a very, very special little visitor and so we got to play one very very special round with HIM ...

Yes - here he is - Jock the Real Live Hamster!

Jock must have an Equity Card hidden about his little person, because he was a real pro!

After a bit of a clean in the middle of Castle Hamster, he proceeded to explore. First he gave the portcullis an exploratory nibble, before moving on for a more serious chew of Exit 2.

Fortunately he then (to my relief) delighted the audience by EXITING - and believe me, it was one of the most EXCITING EXITS in Castle Hamster history!

Three Cheers for Bold Sir Jock of Wigtown!

And many thanks to Zoe Bestel for taking the photos, and for Heather for being such a Calming Presence!

The Castle Hamster Box

OK, so it doesn't look much ....

... does it? Just a big shiny black box.

But it's taken several days, lots of paper and paste, and a big sticky space in the office, to complete.

Now it's hopefully drying in the balmy breeze, which occasionally gusts rather alarmingly so I've put 2 bricks inside. I've also moved it away from the fence where a tree kept shedding its leaves onto it. And have fingers crossed that the starlings steer well clear because I'd rather it wasn't black and white.

Incidentally, I've spent the last 15 minutes removing black gloss from my right eye with white spirit ...

When it dries - WHEN??? ... I am hoping Castle Hamster will fit snugly inside without too many problems, and that I can invent a closing mechanism using Velcro.

Yes, it doesn't look much. Just a big shiny black ..... BOX

The Birth of the Kelpie ...

Work on the Kelpie mask goes on.

I tried it on Allan on Thursday night before the rehearsal and it was just as well I did, because even the little overlapping I'd done had caused the inside to feel quite a lot tighter.

I was particularly concerned about how much of the eye-holes I could get rid of and still allow Allan to see, and although he said I could block in the inner third, I'm still a bit unwilling to do this. Peripheral vision's OK for horses, but I'm not sure about actors!

Anyway, yesterday I got a photo of a horse, and some stuff called Wireform and began the task of elongating the face to - roughly - horse-like proportions ....

Is it me, or are there echoes of the Elephant Man?

Oh well ... maybe that's OK to be going on with ...

And then there's the mane to find.

NOT Castle Hamster!

Yes, amazingly, this blog post is not about Castle Hamster - though it easily could be, for the Trials and Tribulations continue and it's still not finished ...

It's about The Kelpie's Song which is the pantomime I've written for Calder Drama - the local drama group here in Lochwinnoch. Last March I wrote them the community play The Spirit of Lochwinnoch and they still seem to be speaking to me after that - so this latest production is due to be performed on the 24th and 25th of November and rehearsals are well under way.


Now, one of the challenges in The Kelpie's Song is that part of it is set in the underwater kingdom of the King of the Kelpies - there's a local legend that says a wicked kelpie lives under one of our lochs but in the pantomime he lives under the River Calder - and so a set has to be created that looks magical and watery. The other challenge is that The Kelpie's Song being about a kelpie, which is a kind of water-horse, usually white, the actor playing the part has to wear a mask. And it was to the creation of said mask that yesterday I turned my attentions.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of young Allan last night as we swathed his face in plaster-of-paris bandages, but think Revenge of the Mummies mixed in with Phantom of the Opera. After allowing the plaster to dry out we removed it, and I for one was mightily relieved not to find Allan's eyebrows, ears, or other vital parts of him, adhering to the inside ...

So this was what was sitting on my desk this morning when I came downstairs ... and the problem of how to morph it into something resembling a mystical horse - the problem with which I had finally (with difficulty) got myself off to sleep last night - was the order of the day.

If I've ever done anything like this before it's long disappeared into the deepest chasms of my memory, so basically today I was making it up as I went along.

First I patched up some bits that looked a bit threadbare. Then I had a Long Think, and I thought that what I really needed to do was get rid of Allan's understandably 'human' features. So I rolled bits of moist loo paper into little sausages and bound them into place with more bandage ...

.... and this is how it looked at Close of Play this afternoon.

Goodness knows how I stick the ears on. More bandages, I suppose? And since horses have eyes on the sides of their heads, I need to move the location of the eyes away from Allan's own eye-holes NOT FORGETTING that Allan does need to be able to SEE ...

So there we are. Almost makes Castle Hamster look like child's play ...?

What am I saying????